Home Made Pot!

[WhichDoctor]

I would just like to introduce my very first home fired pot, well it's a sort of pot .

It is slightly smaller than an eggcup, but not bad considering that the clay was wet strait out of the ground when it went into the fire. I was just having a little fire in my chimnia on boxing-day (having had enough of people and chocolate and stuff) and was fiddling with a piece of clay. For no particular reason I made a little thumb pot and put it in the fire and covered it with coals. I then forgot about it till the fire burnt down and there it was, still intact! So I hoicked it out and (remembering something I sore on this forum) brought it up to the house and pored milk over it.

Well here it is, it is completely fired and waterproof. Frankly I didn't think that was possible. The cracks round the rim were there when I made it because the clay was a bit dry, and the pit in the bottom is where there was a stone in the clay that must have popped out.







Im going to have a nether go now with a bigger one and see if I can recreate the result.

Any thoughts are welcome

 

[Simon E]

Good job! I must admit, this has been on my 'To Do' list for a long time, not opportunity so far though.

There is a good article on another forum on the chemistry of firing a pot.

http://wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/containers/pottery/index.html

Give it a read, I think you will find it worth your while for when you attempt the coffee cup size

The cool thing with your coal fire at home is that you have all you need to play with this quite seriously.

I think the biggest hurdle you will find (from reading comments, not from experience so take this at face value) will be the quality of the clay you use.

If I was to have a try I think I would get some proper potters clay of ebay or something, just to keep down the number of things that could lead to a failure during the firing process.

Anyway, keep it up, I for one am certainly interested in seeing what can be done.

 

[Stuart]

You probably just recreated the scene of the discovery of clay pottery

somebody in our distant past was absentmindedly playing with a bit of clay, moulding it around their thumb, got a bit bored of the interesting but otherwise useless mud and threw it in the fire.

Fire dies down and in the ashes they find that bit of mud they were playing with, only now its more like stone.

hmmm they thought, could be useful if I could make a bigger one!

 

[chrisanson]

nice m8. nothing better than just having a go for the hell of it.
and i know what you mean about having enogh of people and food!i am gona get in my shed ASAP.
chris

 

[WhichDoctor]

Thanks for that link Simon E, very useful info on firing, I hadn't thought of filling the pots with sore-dust . As for the quality of the clay, I'm quite lucky in that regard. I went to a pottery evening class for a time a while ago and took some of my garden clay along, the teacher tested it in the kiln and said that it was excellent quality. I even have a couple of pots that I made out of my clay and had fired properly at the class. So I know its good clay, and the teacher also showed me how to purify it by soaking the clay in a bucket of water so that all the stones and things sink to the bottom. I have a bit soaking rite now so will have another go in a couple of days.

And yes I'm shore your rite Stuart, there's something timeless about that story. I am even thinking of making a Earth Mother figurine to be really traditional .

 

[xylaria]

It looks like red marl. The earlist pottery from staffordshire is made with red marl, and so is victorian red brick. So it is literally the stuff britian is made from. Red marl is a robust clay. There is a large seem of it from alsager to dudley, I dont know how far west it goes.

I can get blue/blew clay near me aswell. Which is lovely quality, really smoothe. The only problem is that I have a back yard and can't fire it anywhere.

When I was a student in wolverhampton, I dug up a massive lump of red clay from my garden. Gave it to friend who was doing an art degree, it kept her going for about a year. She commented that it was very stable, I know not very much about pottery and had no idea what she meant.

 

[chrisanson]

It looks like red marl. The earlist pottery from staffordshire is made with red marl, and so is victorian red brick. So it is literally the stuff britian is made from. Red marl is a robust clay. There is a large seem of it from alsager to dudley, I dont know how far west it goes.

I can get blue/blew clay near me aswell. Which is lovely quality, really smoothe. The only problem is that I have a back yard and can't fire it anywhere.

When I was a student in wolverhampton, I dug up a massive lump of red clay from my garden. Gave it to friend who was doing an art degree, it kept her going for about a year. She commented that it was very stable, I know not very much about pottery and had no idea what she meant.

i think the rest of that seem is in my garden!!! we get so water logged in the winter as the garden just will not absorb the water . Still I know what to use it for next time I am cursing as I dig the garden.
chris

 

[rich59]

Hmmm. I have clay (London clay). I have a coal fire. Could I use that? What if I wanted to glaze my pot to make it waterproof. Could I do that?

 

[WhichDoctor]

i think the rest of that seem is in my garden!!! we get so water logged in the winter as the garden just will not absorb the water . Still I know what to use it for next time I am cursing as I dig the garden.
chris

I know exactly how you feel mate . We have a solid bed of clay as little as 2-ft below the surface all over the garden, it's a nightmare digging it .

Hmmm. I have clay (London clay). I have a coal fire. Could I use that? What if I wanted to glaze my pot to make it waterproof. Could I do that?

I don't know anything about London clay, my pottery teacher did say that some clays need certain minerals adding to then to make them fire properly. But give It a go, you don't know till you try. As for glazing that mite be a problem, you need quite a high temperature to melt glazes, i doubt you could to it in your fire. But you can burnish pots by gently rubbing the surface with a smooth stone or the back of a spoon, that makes the pot pretty well water proof. If you don't use it on a fire you can seal the inside with beeswax and pine pitch. but a normal pot will be very nearly waterproof anyway, the water will just seep out very slowly (good enough for cooking with). Also as I said I remember someone (Toddy I think) talking about sealing roar pots by pouring milk over them while they are warm from the fire, if I remember rightly it also helps hold them together if they aren't fired to a high temperature.

P.S. A quick search for burnishing turned this site up, it isn't hugely detailed but it's a good description, I mite try it on the next pot myself http://www.lockettpots.uklinux.net/pottery/smoke.php

 

[Dave Budd]

nice looking little thing! I didn't realise quite how small it was until I scrolled down and saw the sak!

Why did you pour milk over it though? All I can think that would do are either make it go ping if the pot were still hot, or make a foul taste adheare to it when the milk goes off? I know milk lipids are found in pots archaeologically, but that is just residue form the food that was in it.

I've made a few pots iin this vein, granted they were fired in a kiln but the mixes and designs were archaeologically correct. I have a neolithic pinch/thumb pot that I use as a mug for drinking everything from tea and coffee to mead and wine. Yes the liquid soaks into the fabric, but it never leaks and the soaking just serves to keep the cold drinks cool and the thickness of the fabric makes it a good insulator of hands long after you finish your drink!

I did try waterproofing a mid Iron Age coil built pot using beesway a while back, but the first hot stew I put in went through that Again, no leaking problems and no cross contamination of flavours.

I'm going to try some clay that I have in my woods and see how forge-side firings work with it

 

[WhichDoctor]

nice looking little thing! I didn't realise quite how small it was until I scrolled down and saw the sak!

Why did you pour milk over it though? All I can think that would do are either make it go ping if the pot were still hot, or make a foul taste adheare to it when the milk goes off? I know milk lipids are found in pots archaeologically, but that is just residue form the food that was in it.

yes it really is very small but where is the sak .

As for the milk, as I said I remembered reading something on this forum about it, something about people in Scotland traditionally firing pots at a low temperature in there home hearths, when the pot was dun they pored milk over it. Not entirely shore why but its too small to use so I thought I'd try it out, and it didn't go ping and it doesn't smell, so it must work somehow.

 

[Chopper]

Geeps..when I first saw the title I thought that soomeone was growing their own, then I saw the second picture download first and saw the brown lump and was in a state of shock thinking this thread will be pulled within the hour.

Then all became clear, nice work.

 

[WhichDoctor]

Oh well it's taken a lot longer than I was expecting to process and dry the clay out enough to use. But last week it was finely ready, after all the soaking and needing there was a bit less clay than I thought so the pot is a bit little again but this time it definitely is a pot!

Here are some pictures, it's still drying out so it should be ready to go in a couple of days. I'm only putting these up so that after it's fired I can show you some more pictures of all the broken shards and you'll know what it was meant to look like .




I've had a go at burnishing it with a fragment of finally glazed china i found in the garden and it looks pretty smooth and shiny, so it will be interesting to see how it terns out.

 

[chrisanson]

m8 that is sound
chris