Pit Firing Clay

[Cobweb]

I've been getting really interested in pit firing clay and *eventually* I will be digging up my own garden for the stuff, however at the moment I just can't (which is really frustrating by the by) anywho, I was just wondering if you fine people have any good recommendations for online companies that sell good quality clay suitable for pit firing please. I'm a little bit overwhelmed by the range and choices so I beg for guidance.

Thanks

 

[Toddy]

I've done this with children's groups and with a group of reenactors too.
We just used the bog standard clay sold for schools. Any of the suppliers will have it to hand. Fred Aldous for instance.
Terracotta low fire stuff usually. It's maleable, it's good for slab and coil work, it doesn't slump and shrink very much at all and it's good at low temperature firing. (it doesn't even need up to cone4, iirc)
We also just dug the clay out of the riverside, added fine grit (lot of neolithic pottery around here, we reckoned that if they could do it, so could we ) and let it dry really well before we fired it.
Worked out really, really well

It's a fun thing is pottery I hope you find it so too

 

[Cobweb]

I've done this with children's groups and with a group of reenactors too.
We just used the bog standard clay sold for schools. Any of the suppliers will have it to hand. Fred Aldous for instance.
Terracotta low fire stuff usually. It's maleable, it's good for slab and coil work, it doesn't slump and shrink very much at all and it's good at low temperature firing. (it doesn't even need up to cone4, iirc)
We also just dug the clay out of the riverside, added fine grit (lot of neolithic pottery around here, we reckoned that if they could do it, so could we ) and let it dry really well before we fired it.
Worked out really, really well

It's a fun thing is pottery I hope you find it so too

That's brill Toddy! Thank you so much <3 I'll give it a go

 

[Toddy]

How do you know your friends are on your wavelength ?

Helen came to visit, walked past the living room door and was nearly at the kitchen when she turned round and looked again.
"Why have you got a Neolithic coffin in your living room ??", said she......and I replied that I'd just made a copy of a cinerary urn (grooved ware) as one does, and that it was full of marbles for me to make up into bags to use as weights on a warp weighted loom. Where else would I put it ?
"Cool shall I put the kettle on ?", and she did

Lock down has been awfully boring; I miss my friends.

M

 

[oldtimer]

I can let you have a copy of the handout notes of a course I used to run for teachers if you pm me your email address. You may find some of the information of use.

 

[Cobweb]

How do you know your friends are on your wavelength ?

Helen came to visit, walked past the living room door and was nearly at the kitchen when she turned round and looked again.
"Why have you got a Neolithic coffin in your living room ??", said she......and I replied that I'd just made a copy of a cinerary urn (grooved ware) as one does, and that it was full of marbles for me to make up into bags to use as weights on a warp weighted loom. Where else would I put it ?
"Cool shall I put the kettle on ?", and she did

Lock down has been awfully boring; I miss my friends.

M

Hahaha that's amazing! I love the fact she knew what the construct was as well

 

[Cobweb]

I can let you have a copy of the handout notes of a course I used to run for teachers if you pm me your email address. You may find some of the information of use.

Thank you so much for your generous offer, I'll send you a PM just now

 

[TLM]

a copy of a cinerary urn (grooved ware)

Curious me; with what search term(s) can I find a pic of one like yours?

 

[oldtimer]

Thank you so much for your generous offer, I'll send you a PM just now

i hope I've sent you a copy of my "Primitive Pottery" notes for you to download . However, my grasp of primitive technology is not matched by my grasp of modern information technology. Please let me know if it doesn't arrive.

 

[Toddy]

Nice one @oldtimer

I'd love to see photos of what you come up with @Cobweb

I admit that I used my pots, some went to friends who still do activities at heritage sites, and there are still a few kicking around the greenhouse. It surprised me just how robust they were.
I made grooved ware rather than Unstan because I wanted them to stand, not to need to be set in either soft ground, rush rings or fire embers.
I did have a go at the hearth fired craggans too. Sealed those with milk lipids. Beautiful black coloured pots. Any dunt though leaves them flaking off or cracking, but they're still so useful. Eventually one of my basketmaker friends and I sat and wove grass 'nests' for them. Pretty sure they must have done something similar in the past, and we do find evidences for woven grass 'mats' under some of the pots. One I saw had a splodge of clay on it to hold the base for the coil work in place that one was dated to over four thousand years ago. Site on Lewis, iirc. The mark of the mat on the base showed that it was a coiled one; three 'stitches' over every ring and the next row fitted neatly into the spaces between.

You've put me in the notion to play I have two bags and a bucket load of clay. If you lived nearer I'd happily get muddy

 

[Cobweb]

i hope I've sent you a copy of my "Primitive Pottery" notes for you to download . However, my grasp of primitive technology is not matched by my grasp of modern information technology. Please let me know if it doesn't arrive.

I have it, thank you

 

[Cobweb]

I'd love to see photos of what you come up with @Cobweb

If all goes well

 

[Cobweb]

Pretty sure they must have done something similar in the past, and we do find evidences for woven grass 'mats' under some of the pots. One I saw had a splodge of clay on it to hold the base for the coil work in place that one was dated to over four thousand years ago. Site on Lewis, iirc.

A grass mat and outer basket makes complete sense and if the materials are there then why not eh?

You've put me in the notion to play I have two bags and a bucket load of clay. If you lived nearer I'd happily get muddy

I can't wait until they develop teleporters!

 

[Broch]

Oh no, you two have set me on a plan for more (very amateur) experimental archaeology!

We live on a clay hillside (glacial deposits) and the lady that left the house when we moved in some 27 years ago had made some small, quite fine, 'posy pots' from the clay that came out when they drilled the borehole - she left us one with primroses in on the day we moved in . I think I would like to have a go. I was taught 'thumb pot' making as a child at school; I need to get back to that simplistic thinking

I know there is no evidence of basic baked clay pottery from the UK Mesolithic, but is it unreasonable to presume they may have had some? After tens of thousands of years of managing fires wouldn't man have noticed 'mud' go hard by the side of it? I have often thought that much simpler pots, that maybe only lasted days, would have been of a great deal of use to people.

 

[oldtimer]

Broch: Sounds like a copy of my "Primitive Pottery" notes may be useful to you too.

If you, or anyone else, would like a copy to download, please pm me with your email address.

 

[Broch]

Broch: Sounds like a copy of my "Primitive Pottery" notes may be useful to you too.

If you, or anyone else, would like a copy to download, please pm me with your email address.

PM'd , thanks.

 

[Toddy]

Oh no, you two have set me on a plan for more (very amateur) experimental archaeology!

We live on a clay hillside (glacial deposits) and the lady that left the house when we moved in some 27 years ago had made some small, quite fine, 'posy pots' from the clay that came out when they drilled the borehole - she left us one with primroses in on the day we moved in . I think I would like to have a go. I was taught 'thumb pot' making as a child at school; I need to get back to that simplistic thinking

I know there is no evidence of basic baked clay pottery from the UK Mesolithic, but is it unreasonable to presume they may have had some? After tens of thousands of years of managing fires wouldn't man have noticed 'mud' go hard by the side of it? I have often thought that much simpler pots, that maybe only lasted days, would have been of a great deal of use to people.

@oldtimer that's very good of you

When excavating very old sites in the UK we do come across what we call 'rotten pot'. It's stuff that literally is like soggy pottery. It falls apart. It's clay that's been sort of fired but not ceramicised properly. If you look up Craggans/ croggies and maybe put in Western Isles, you'll see the kind of thing I mean.

The trick is to get your pot really dry before you try firing it, and that's hard in the UK, outdoors.
If you keep the pot beside the fire though it does dry. Then you put it into the fire and you fill it with embers too and roast it. (here they used peat fires, and put smouldering peats into the croggie too)
Let it cool in the hearth and when it's cool but not cold wipe it out with grass and the pour milk in it. The milk lipids seal the porous clay...that's what good ceramicising does, it makes the clay bond enough that it's not going to leak....and when the pot cools you can both cook in it and use it as a vessel.

When we played with fires as children, the clay soil slowly fired. My brother still lives in that house and he says that where the fire was is still hard, still baked clay. Not hard clay like china, but like crumbly terracotta.....rotten pot