reconditioning dry clay

[dubmblond]

Hello All

Often, when I work with art clay (650) I make my own “slip”, using tap water. I never had any problems doing this over and over rewetting the same piece of clay.
 
My current problem is a piece of clay that does not completely dissolve any more. In the clay hard lumps remain.

Different to “normal” is :

This is a piece of slow dry 650. Before i was using normal 650.
I have dissolved the clay 3x using tap water. After reading that distilled water was better to use, I used distilled water with the 4th time. This is when the lumps occurred. They are very hard and will not dissolve. I rolled it out with a rolling pin crunching the lumps. It is a bit better now but…the remainders are still there.

3 questions have been rolling over in my mind:

1 is it the distilled water?
2 is it the combination of normal and distilled water together?
3 is it the slow dry behaving different to the normal 650 clay?

Is there anybody who has had the same problem? And found a solution?

Thanks for listening
Monique Gregory
"Monique Unique" Arts and Crafts

[Metalman]

Slow Dry does behave differently - so it is my guess that this is the problem.
The distilled water should not cause a problem and it sounds like your tap water was working fine.
I have really good well water  and it seems fine.
If our well was sulfury or heavy on the iron ot minerals - I would use distilled.

[dubmblond]

Hello Curt

Thanks for your reply. My responding is a bit late. I’ve been away for a while. It is a pity that there is not a real good answer for it. I did get it a bit better by rolling it further with a rolling pin. But no not all of it is gone. I'll just have to use it for something with a textured surface. Who knows what unexpected nice results it will give

Thanks again
Monique
"Monique Unique" Arts and crafts

[dubmblond]

November 12 2006

The clay mentioned in the previous post is still "reconditioning" Rolled it out a few more times but the result remains the same. There are still lumps in it that will not recondition. Here is the continuation of the project:

I did the piece over. Using fresh slow dry 650 clay. Done it about 5 times on this one (it broke time after time while filing the edges smooth, just like on the first piece of clay. This is the whole reason what started my initial problem of reconditioning the clay in the first place)This time first I did not mix tap water and distilled water. I used distilled water only this time. I had no problems what so ever '> and now finally I fired the piece tonight to my satisfaction.

I do have a tip however for I did change my way of working (getting fed up with the file catching and breaking my piece).

When wanting to “touch up” a delicate piece of clay (surface, edges, the back or what ever you want to touch up. Rather than using hard tools like a file, sand paper, saw blade or what ever. I used water in the first instance, then a needle, bamboo sate pricks, mini screwdrivers or what ever you can think of that will do the little crevices that are hard to come by. Wet it – leave it for 5 so- let the water do its job – take away what you don’t want. Have diluted clay ready to fill in what you miss, Take a magnifying glass to see what you missed and I was ready and satisfied enough to fire the piece. dubmblond

Solution: I think it might have been the mix of the 2 types of water (tap water and then switching to distilled) that caused the initial problem not the slow dry clay in it self.

Good luck  
Monique Monique Unique