#SEPARATION STUDIO CRACK CRACK#

Be sure to mix very thoroughly: a deflocculated slip will flow most readily after it’s been mixed for several minutes. Adding a drop or two of darvan to a very thick slip will make it flow without adding more water. If you still need the slip to flow to get the look you want, you can look into deflocculating your slip.

Clay shrinks when the water evaporates, so if there’s less water to evaporate, there’s less wet to dry shrinkage. If particle size isn’t the issue, the next thing to look at is water content. If not, you can slice the clay thinly and slake it in hot water over a lunch break, and blend it up with a stick blender when you come back. If you go through a lot of it, look into whether or not your clay comes in dry bags to make mixing easier. You should be using either reclaim that has the throwing slop, trimmings and failed pieces all blended together, or purpose mix your slip from fresh clay. If you’re only using your throwing slop, you’re making slip out of the finest particles from your clay, the ones that shrink the most, causing the cracks. When you say you‘re using recycled clay, are you making it from your throwing slop, or are you using your whole reclaim with trimmings and failed pieces as well? You just have to get it to shrink at the right rate, which just needs a possible tweak or two. I think the best way to go is to keep using your clay body as a base, as it seems to hold colour well. There’s a few things that might be going on here, but they should be pretty easy to fix. Hey fellow thick slip user! Those are some lovely bottles. Should I look into slip recipes vs my own clay? Anything I can add to prevent? Keep it in a damp box forever? You can check out some pictures of ones that are fine but one has a minor separation you can see if you close enough (second pic). The only thing I can think really causing it is each slip color is not exactly the same consistency which is is causing them to dry slightly different. Considering I am using the same clay body I would think this is preventable. Again, I have got it down pretty good where it is, IMO, it is only really noticeable to me as a 'flaw' but I really want to not have it happen at all. I apply it while it is well before leather hard, as that seems to help, and then I put it in a damp box for a few days and just slowly open and close that until it is as good as I can get it. I put it on thick to get a psychedelic'esque look I am going for where the different colors overlap and that is where they seem to crack, or separate a tad from the overlap is a better way to put it. I have got it down pretty well but not where I want it, which is zero cracks

#SEPARATION STUDIO CRACK CRACK#

Inspired by some others I have been having a lot of fun playing with colored slip from my same clay body, mainly as a way to recycle and try new things (porcelain), but I have not seemed to crack the code, pardon the pun, on drying it perfectly, especially on tall vase like forms.

Separation studio crack