The first wedge is the deepest (reclaiming clay)

When i started using the wheel, I thought 25kg of clay would be plenty to keep me going for a while. The good news is…I was right! I have been using this clay for around a month now. I’ve almost got through the two bags now – so it was time to reclaim! I watched a You Tube video by Pottery to the People, which shows you how to make a plaster bat…and gave it a go!

It was actually quite easy to make the bat itself thanks to the detailed instructions. They take up to a week to dry, so you need to be organised and make them before you have lots of clay to reclaim ideally (I wasn’t – more below).

Two buckets for clay

Then the clay itself. Not rocket science I guess, but I tend to have two buckets of water in my pottery area. The one bucket is for throwing water and reclaimed clay. The other is for washing up. One day I would love water and a sink trap, but for now I am using the second bucket, emptying this back into the garden (we have clay soil anyway!) and then scraping any clay at the bottom of the bucket into my reclaim bucket. I will be honest, without doing this I seem to end up with a lot of water…and I am a bit too scared to start throwing this down the sink at home…despite the clay sinking to the bottom.

Once the reclaim bucket was full, I got as much water out as I could with my measuring jug…then basically mixed the rest as best I could with my hands, getting rid of any larger bits of clay (to a point anyway…I have seen ‘proper’ potters using paint mixers – another thing for the list!). I remember reading that you shouldn’t have really big chunks of clay in there, so I’ve always tried to kind of split up any bigger bits i have before i even put them in the reclaim bucket. Basically – the less lumpy you can get your clay, the easier it will be to wedge and the nicer the consistency to use.

Hardiebacker disaster

I had already bought some hardiebacker board ready for the kiln (before I realised it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to put the kiln in the room with loads of combustible materials) – so when I realised the plaster bats would take a while to dry, I decided to use one of those instead. I don’t know what I did, but the clay completely dried out and was almost impossible to wedge around the edges. I was a bit gutted as I had kind of given myself some set time to wedge – and of course that wasn’t going to happen now. I had to paint scrape it off the hardiebacker board back into the original clay bag, then add around 150ml of water to it. I tied the bag up and put it in a bucket of water (not sure why this works, but it really does!). The clay was revived! If anything it was a bit wet (thanks to an unseen hole in the bag) as I had to leave it to sit for about 5 days. I popped it onto canvas rather than plaster for a day – then it was the perfect wedging consistency.

I I didn’t get pictures of the original clay on the hardiebacker board (useless I know!) but I think I had spread this too thinly. I have therefore taken pictures of the clay I am also drying on the plaster bats now they are ready (yey!).

Where to wedge your clay

To wedge I bought a very cheap wooden board from B&Q – then covered it with canvas (I used a staple gun – the canvas was just from Amazon). This is great for wedging – some clay can stick to it but I can again just scrape this off with the paint scraper. I can also sponge this over if needed. Eventually I would like to replace this with a wooden table, just looking for one the right size on ebay or marketplace.

I always give the clay a little wedge when it comes out of the bag, even though it’s been fresh clay so far. I’ve found that the rams head method of wedging is easiest for me, although I am hoping to learn spiral wedging once I start the new throwing classes in January – and I might just give it a go before then too!

I sliced the clay to make it easier for myself and didn’t wedge the lot…I did this in small sections (I am only throwing small cylinders at the moment.

Will let you know if the reclaim works properly, but for now, its perfect for practising on. Good luck with your own reclaim!