Clay how is it made

Also known as sedimentary clay. Katherine Fortnum. Where Does Clay Come From? Recent Posts See All. Kiln Firing Method - Gas Firing. Post not marked as liked. Mix Flour and Salt In a large bowl, mix the flour and salt. Tips Don't make your clay projects too thick, or they will crack when baked. Bake the clay project long enough for the clay to harden but not start to burn. If you want your clay to have a golden appearance, brush your pottery with egg yolk before placing it in the oven. Related Topics.

Kids Crafts. Show Full Article. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for TheSpruceCrafts. When you buy clay from an industrial company, you will know its shrinkage percentage. It will be written on the package. Different clay bodies shrink at different rates.

Take some of your clay body and form it in a rectangle of roughly 22cm x 3cm, with even thickness 5 to 7 mm will do. Place a ruler on the rectangle and with a modelling tool, make a notch on the clay for each of the cm on the ruler cover 20 cm.

Let your sample dry. While drying your sample will start shrinking, meaning that the notches that are now 1 cm apart from each other, will come closer. Fire the sample. To be more accurate, you could make a range of samples with the same material and fire them at different temperatures and cooling times. Measure the distance between the first and the last notch, that originally measured 20 cm. The more clay samples you collect, the more you will realise how they differ in colour both when wet and after firing.

You can catalogue each sample based on colour and shrinkage and you can start mixing different types of clays, using different percentages of each, to obtain in-between shades as well as levelling the shrinkage. To make it lighter and porous, you can add organic material that will burn at the high temperatures of the oven.

For example, try adding saw dust or hair or foliage. When you design and make your object out of clay, you will need to keep into account the risks of the drying process. Thinner or more readily exposed parts will tend to dry first. This will produce stress in the clay, that sometimes will show up as crack or warpage, and other times will show up as breakage in the kiln.

Slow down the drying process by covering your piece in plastic film. Inside the film, a micro-moisture environment will be created. Moisture evaporating from the faster-drying parts of the clay will redistribute and will help the whole object drying at the same rate. Clay is not very good for growing plants, but it is the key ingredient to making pottery.

Because of the way that clay particles are shaped, clay can take on varying degrees of "plasticity". Plasticity - is the ability of clay to be bent or stretched. The more plastic a clay body the more workable the clay and the easier it is to shape into pots. What is a Clay Body? It may have just one type of clay or it may be a combination of ten different types of clay.

Non-clay materials can be added as well to create different properties in the clay. For example, grog is a coarse sand-like material that adds strength and reduces shrinking during firing.

Adding frit to a clay body causes the clay to begin melting and fuse at a lower temperature. Coloring Clay - The color of clay is naturally varied, ranging from rich terracotta reds to buff, brown, and white.