Your Projects

Hey all,

I'm looking to make ceramic water channels made from clay that is locally sourced from natural deposits. My overall project is to create a modular hydroponic system that can grow vegetables without excessive use of plastics.

I've found a number of places to get clay in the Okanagan and have taken samples and have processed some of the samples into fairly workable clay. And digitalfire just released an article on evaluating found clays, which will be good for next steps: https://digitalfire.com/project/41

I've also built a prototype clay extruder for creating the channels, and have tested making extrusions on some leftover commercial clay.

I was wondering if anyone is interested in this idea... and I was also wondering if anyone here would be interested in helping me fire some very small samples of the clay I've foraged to test it's suitability.

I'm happy to post pictures of overall project. I've been meaning to make some sort of online spot for it...

Hi Kirk

sounds like you’ve gathered some great information… Tony is definitely the clay guru and although I don’t fully understand your project I do work with commercial clay and have experience firing kilns. I’m not sure how we could adequately help with your testing, as we have 1 large kiln, with specific firing parameters based on the clay bodies in house. I’m thinking you might be better served with access to a small test kiln, which could be economically fired multiple times, in the hunt for which temperature best suits the vitrification of your native clay/s. This is however just my opinion, and I encourage others to chime in, as the concept for your project is definitely a great hack and certainly seems to be well thought out.

Thanks Karen! Sorry for taking so long to respond! I had to contend with a couple of deadlines.

For fire testing naturally sourced or "wild" clay, I think you're right in that I need to find a test kiln. To find something more cost effective, I might actually try creating an outdoor fire kiln at home for some initial tests. I've heard that microwave kilns can work too, though they don't go to high temperatures. If anyone has any personal experience with any of those processes, or with temperature-measuring devices like pyrometric cones or a thermocouple, I'm all ears.

But I'm also planning to test my designs with normal commercial clay too. The clay channel extruder can use in-house clay bodies, and it would be nice to see my hydroponic system in action, even with purchased clay. I can pick a low-fire clay that only needs a bisque fire as the channels don't need durability or glazes.

For more information on the project, I recently had to put together a full report in PDF, so I've shared it here too as an attachment.

Hey all,

Just an update on the project. I was able to find someone willing to fire a prototype made with commercial clay in a kiln, and I've also just successfully fired two sample pieces in an outdoor fire.

The image showing the water is the commercial clay prototype fired in a friend's kiln. The two boxes I'm holding are from the outdoor campfire firing. The white left box is using commercial clay as a control, and the orange one on the right is from clay dug from Vernon (from Pottery Road).

It's unreal that I was able to turn something so freely available into a solid object - feels like magic :P

I've since found clay sources closer to home. (Once you know what to look for, you start seeing clay everywhere!) And, I'm starting to process larger quantities to start making the larger channels.