No you cannot make clay just from dirt. You need the right minerals, which may already be present in dirt but thats no guarantee.
What kind of minerals are needed? Can you find earth that feels like clay but won't fire nicely? Or do the required minerals also give those plastic properties you can see in earth?
Some are kaolinite, montmorillonite, and illite and they do indeed help with the plasticity. I am not sure if you can create clay from pure materials without specialized machines.
I am not an expert in this field but its one of the rare things that I remember from school, mostly because it was very relevant when helping my dad build a chicken coop.
Basically you need clay soil, which as far as i am aware is just a natural occurring soil layer containing those nutrients.
Depending on the local area that soil may already feel like clay and might be usuable as is. But its probably better to refine this into proper clay at home.
If you want to make your own clay I recommend simply asking around where to find clay soil. Almost every terrain anywhere exists out of multiple layers of different soil and chance is high that some people can tell you exactly what your local composition is.
The same nutrients that make clay are also very good to grow food, people have been studying these compositions for ages to decide where to start farming and building.
For me all that mattered was if dig a hole to put a pillar for the coop, i first had to dig trough normal dirt. Then had to struggle my way trough the “high quality clay soil which the local farm area is famous for”. To get to the much easier to penetrate sandlayer (still mostly dirt but the opposite of plasticity)
So you can make clay from dirt.
Clay is dirt if you live somewhere with clay soil.
That's like $200 worth of equipment, fuck that I'll just make mud and use my imagination.
A rock and pavement? 😂
Nice video, would have been cool to see how they acted once fired.
Here's a link showing him doing that, possibly with a different sample.
No you cannot make clay just from dirt. You need the right minerals, which may already be present in dirt but thats no guarantee.
What kind of minerals are needed? Can you find earth that feels like clay but won't fire nicely? Or do the required minerals also give those plastic properties you can see in earth?
Some are kaolinite, montmorillonite, and illite and they do indeed help with the plasticity. I am not sure if you can create clay from pure materials without specialized machines.
I am not an expert in this field but its one of the rare things that I remember from school, mostly because it was very relevant when helping my dad build a chicken coop.
Basically you need clay soil, which as far as i am aware is just a natural occurring soil layer containing those nutrients. Depending on the local area that soil may already feel like clay and might be usuable as is. But its probably better to refine this into proper clay at home.
If you want to make your own clay I recommend simply asking around where to find clay soil. Almost every terrain anywhere exists out of multiple layers of different soil and chance is high that some people can tell you exactly what your local composition is. The same nutrients that make clay are also very good to grow food, people have been studying these compositions for ages to decide where to start farming and building.
For me all that mattered was if dig a hole to put a pillar for the coop, i first had to dig trough normal dirt. Then had to struggle my way trough the “high quality clay soil which the local farm area is famous for”. To get to the much easier to penetrate sandlayer (still mostly dirt but the opposite of plasticity)
So you can make clay from dirt.