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The process...
Clay comes in plastic bags. I use clay from
Greece but not from Zakynthos as the zakynthian clay is not suitable for my
work; it is low fired (around 700oC), light yellow (ochre) in
colour, and it is only good for tiles for the roofs and for big pots to keep
olive-oil, wine and food inside. Clay I use is high fired (up to 1280oC),
white in colour and painting shows better on it.
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Wet
clay in plastic bags |
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The
pug mill
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There are special
factories which take the clay from the ground remove all the
external materials and make the first step of preparation. Although clay is
pug-milled from the factory it needs more preparation before we can use it
to make ceramics.
The first step is to remove all the air bubbles, with special equipment: pug
mill. If we don' t remove air, ceramics will broke during
firing.
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The pug mill compacts clay and in
this way most (if not all) air bubbles are removed. Clay also becomes more firm,
more plastic and easier to work with. Clay comes out from the pug mill in the
shape of bars.
Clay bars need to be cut in pieces according to the size of the items we want to
make. In order to make things of the same size we have to cut clay in pieces of
the same weight. |
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Clay
bars from the pug mill |
Clay
bars from the pug mill |
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