Do you recycle your clay?

I’m on my 2nd clay reclaim this week. 

I keep a bucket of my dried up scraps so I can rehydrate them into usable clay.  It comes from cut out scraps, trimming scraps, stuff that broke while drying, handles that didn’t shape up just right, gunk I’ve scraped out of my splash pan from throwing & the bottom of my water bucket, etc.

I’ve had an almost full bucket sitting for a WHILE now.  I add water every now & then & mix.  It gets more homogenous the more you mix it obviously (less chunks, smoother).  So yesterday I plopped my plaster table full.  Let that get firm & put it in a bag. I save my original bags that my clay comes in to do reclaims b/c the plastic is thick. 

Today I plopped my 2nd table-full & I’ll bag that up later.  Then I let that bag of reclaim sit for as long as I can.  It gets to the point where the moisture level should be pretty even throughout & then it firms up just a little more cuz it can be harder to throw when it isn’t the right firmness.  Sculpting, I like it a little wetter/softer than throwing.

Anyways, I can’t throw or sculpt right now with a bandaid on my finger.  I sliced my left index finger pretty deep over the weekend while cutting summer sausage. I have some wicked sharp knives (as a side note- if you want a hook up on lifetime warranty amazing knives, let me know). So reclaim is a good thing to do so I have back up clay.  I keep the bandaid on b/c I don’t want to risk pulling up the flap that finally seems to be re-attaching itself.

While bucket #1 was being hydrated, I’ve been throwing dry scraps into a 2nd bucket & I filled that with water yesterday.  It takes a while to get it all rehydrated down to the bottom, so I mix it when I can push down a little further every time.  then I’ll spend a while adding water & remixing until I get that nice smooth pudding-like texture & I can reclaim that.  In the meantime, my new scraps will go back into the 1st bucket for reclaim again. 

It's a pretty cool cycle & it’s so much better than throwing away perfectly good clay!!!  You’d be surprised how many pounds of clay you can reclaim from scraps!!!!  It’s SO MUCH WASTE if you don’t reuse it. I buy clay in 50# boxes.  It is at the right throwing consistency when I buy it so it’s like at that perfect moisture point.  And when I reclaim, I’d say a table-ful is around 10-15# but on the wetter side.  So 2 tables full is likely the equivalent of 25# of clay that would be the perfect moisture content, eventually.  Totally love that!