Mother Nature's Porcelain - From a Cretaceous Dust Storm!

Wednesday 25th July 2018

Plainsman Clays did 6 weeks of mining in June-July 2018 in insight-live.com/material/1178">Ravenscrag, Saskatchewan. We extracted marine sediment layers of the late Cretaceous period. The center portion of the B layer is so fine that it must have wind-transported (impossibly smooth, like a body that is pure terra sigillata)! The feldspar and silica are built-in, producing the glassiest surface I have ever seen at cone 6 (2200F). Despite this, pieces are not warping in the firings! I have not glazed the outside of this mug for demo purposes. I got away with it this time because the Ravenscrag clear glaze is very compatible (similar thermal expansion). But with other less compatible glazes they cracked when I poured in hot coffee. This mug was the beginning of an exciting project the sieve out +325 mesh particles any make many more pieces.

Pages that reference this post in the Digitalfire Reference Library:

B Clay, How to Find and Test Your Own Native Clays, Mother Nature's Porcleain, Clay in "dinosaur country" of southern Saskatchewan, Mother Nature's Porcelain and Glaze!, Mother Nature's Porcelain - Plainsman 3B

This post is one of thousands found in the Digitalfire Reference Database. Most are part of a timeline maintained by Tony Hansen. You can search that timeline on the home page of digitalfire.com.