guys welcome back i'm nate with the king
of random today we're going to see if we
can take some of the clay we made in a
previous video and fire it to make it
permanent making clay from river dirt is
awesome but if you can't get it to stick
around it's not as useful we want an
easy way to fire the clay into something
that won't dissolve in water the purpose
of today's video is to see if we can
fire this clay that we've made in a
regular barbecue
the materials we're going to need are a
regular charcoal grill a bunch of
charcoal and some clay after we form our
clay and let it dry we're going to get
the charcoal started as the charcoal
heats up we'll move the clay closer and
closer to the flames until it's directly
over the fire after that we'll actually
take our clay and put it in the coals
and cover it so that it's completely
covered by the hot charcoal we'll try
using a shop vac as a bellows to get the
charcoal even hotter to help fire the
clay then once it's all cooled down
we'll take it out and see if it's been
fired the first thing we need is to
prepare our clay let's try and make a
small coil pot this is quite a bit more
clay than I need so I'm going to tear it
in half my clay is just a little bit too
dry so I'm gonna drip in a few drops of
water and knead it in so I have a better
consistency the clay should be wet
enough that when you squeeze it it
doesn't immediately start cracking
everywhere one of the most common issues
with ceramics is having air bubbles in
your clay as the air heats up it tries
to expand and it has nowhere to go so it
will actually just break the clay apart
to escape so let's make sure our clay
has no air bubbles in it to do that we
do what's called wedging the clay
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now we've removed the air bubbles from
our clay let's roll it out into a long
coil
everybody likes making clay snakes if
you're having a hard time getting nice
long rolls out of your clay it might be
a little bit too dry you should add more
water mix it up evenly and then wedge
the air out again but you don't always
have to have pieces of clay this long
I'm gonna end up breaking it up into
smaller pieces to make my coil pot
anyway you'll want to make sure that
your base is fairly thin it should be
about the same thickness that you make
your walls if they're different
thicknesses they'll dry at different
speeds and that can lead to cracking now
that we have our base form let's start
building up the walls I'm first gonna
use a little bit of water around the
edge to help the clay stick to itself
now we've got the walls built up let's
use just a little bit of water to smooth
everything down and join the edges
together nicely now that we've got our
clay pot formed we need to let it dry
it's best to let it dry slowly to
prevent cracking you should keep your
clay in a dry room temperature
environment for two or three days maybe
as much as a week if you've got thicker
bits of clay
now I actually went ahead and made three
different clay pieces firing in the
barbecue is a little bit of an
experiment and I wanted to try a few
variations this pot is exactly like the
one we just made it's just clay with
nothing else added to it this pot has a
little bit of charcoal ash added to it
and this piece has what's called grog in
it grog is previously fired clay that
you've crushed up into powder and you
mix it in with the clay both the
charcoal ash and the grog are things
that I've read can help prevent cracking
during the firing process so we'll see
which of these three plots turns out the
best you can see that unfortunately all
three of these pots do have a slight
crack running in the bottom that's
because I didn't do a great job of
following my own advice to make sure
that the bottom is the same thickness as
the walls however this is a test on
firing clay in the barbecue and it
shouldn't affect the outcome
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[Applause]
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okay you can see I've got the charcoal
lit and then I piled all of them in one
corner of the barbecue that's because I
need some space on the side of the
barbecue to set the clay for it to heat
up slowly I don't want to throw it right
on top of the fire because I will heat
it so fast that it's guaranteed to crack
now we've got our three clay pots in the
grill and heating up I'm also going to
be adding this fourth piece which is
something we're gonna try casting metal
in if firing it works our clay is
getting nice and warm we do want to
rotate it regularly so that it heats up
evenly if your clay is too hot to touch
use some tongs our charcoal is nice and
hot we're gonna level it out add some
more on top and try using our vacuum as
a bellows to keep the new charcoal up
quickly on our vacuum our hoses usually
attach to this end which sucks in but
we've switched it to attach to the out
end this way the vacuum blows a constant
source of air
I take this away it's actually gonna
burst into flames even more let's also
close our grill a little bit to trap
some of the heat so our clay starts
warming up even more all right it's time
to do another round of adding more
charcoal and using the vacuum as a
bellows to heat it back up again by now
our clay has gotten pretty hot and I'm
going to start putting it on top of the
grate
moving it closer and closer to over the
coals
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you can see them taking a lot of steps
to heat the clay up very slowly in
automated gas and electric kilns this is
a process that can take many hours I've
closed the lid of the grill a little bit
more so it's acting like something of an
oven it's gonna start cooking that clay
and getting it right up to the
temperature so we can soon put it right
in the charcoal all right things are
going good now we're gonna do is put one
last layer of charcoal on then we're
gonna actually put the ceramic pieces
upside down right over the flames and
they're gonna start getting really nice
and hot flattening down the coals just a
little bit now I'm going to be flipping
these over so that they will heat a
little bit more evenly it's not just the
bottoms exposed to the heat a little bit
more with the vacuum then I'm gonna
close the lid back up alright a new
layer of charcoal is nice and hot and
we've put the clay upside down right
above the feet so now it's gonna start
really getting hot in preparation for
going into the coals we're gonna give it
about 15 minutes before we start moving
them down into the fire
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at this point our clay has been sitting
directly over the heat for a few minutes
and should be pretty good and hot we're
gonna take the grill off of the top put
the clay directly down into the charcoal
and tile up some of the charcoal around
it well add a little bit more charcoal
on top hit it with the bellows to heat
it back up and then we're just gonna let
it sit that is burning my hands just
reaching over to put the clay in super
warm
I can hear clicking noises from the clay
so I'm hoping it's not just about to
shatter into a lot of pieces but it's
possible we'll see
now I'm gonna pile a bunch more charcoal
on top and once that started to heat up
I'm gonna hit it with the bellows to
really get it nice and hot
I've got a whole bunch more charcoal
piled on top and the advantage to this
is that our clay will now be exposed to
the high heat for a much longer time as
the first charcoal that I put on there
is burning out and disappearing the
newer charcoal is gonna be getting hot
and keeping all of the fire going for a
longer time you can see that over the
process of this I have used almost this
entire bag of charcoal there's still a
little bit down in there but for the
most part it's been the whole bag you
don't want to get too close but you can
actually see that the clay is now
glowing orange in there that is a really
good sign all right we have used the
vacuum bellows gotten the charcoal and
the clay nice and hot I'm really
optimistic about how it's going so now
I'm gonna take out the block of wood
leave the barbecue close and let it just
burn out and cool down entirely until
tomorrow morning then we'll take the
clay out and see how it's doing
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okay guys update the clay has now been
in the barbecue overnight and should
have cooled down to the point where it's
safe to take out with just my bare hands
let's open it up and see if the clay is
fired just seeing if there's any heat
that I have to be worried about I'm not
feeling anything so I'm probably good Oh
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got some problems with this one that
one's starting to fall apart okay guys
our pieces are out of the barbecue and
there's good news and bad news the good
news is that the clay did fire these are
now permanent and they won't dissolve in
water the bad news is that all of them
started cracking a little bit no matter
what variation of clay ash or grog I use
let's get a close-up look at how each of
these turned out this was the regular
pot that had no added ash or grog to it
and as you can see it has separated
pretty extremely you can kind of see the
letter A this is the pot that had
charcoal ash mixed in with the clay I
think this one has actually held
together the best with only one main
crack but there are a lot of little
cracks as well so it's probably not very
far from falling apart further
here is the pot that was made using grog
this one separated into several little
pieces this right here is probably the
largest unbroken piece of clay we have
so I don't know maybe that does mean
that grog is the best interestingly this
piece that I made is actually the only
one hasn't fallen apart and it's also
the only one that I didn't make using a
coil pot technique which I think means
that it's my coil pot technique that
needs work it's been a long time since
I've taken a ceramics class there are a
few different ways to test if your clay
has fired the easiest is to just try
scratching it with your thumb nail or a
soft tool if I dragged a screwdriver
across the surface of the clay when it
was unfired it would leave a big mark
across it but now that it's fired it
doesn't even leave a mark I think the
most important test about whether your
clay is fired is how it reacts to water
with unfired clay water will cause the
clay to quickly dissolve with fired clay
some water will get absorbed but it's
not gonna do anything to the clay itself
okay guys quick recap of what we've done
for this experiment we took clay that we
made from the river and we fired it in a
grill but we mixed up three different
mixtures of it one that was plain clay
one that had charcoal ash in it and when
they had grog in it to see what would
happen and if there's any difference in
how they fired
unfortunately my ceramic sculpting
techniques are apparently a little bit
flawed because all of the coil pots I
made had started to crack before they
were fired and in the firing process
they broke apart a lot more but the non
coil pot piece that I made actually
stayed together pretty well all in all I
would call this experiment about a 75%
victory we did get the clay to fire in
the grill and that was the main goal
thank you for joining us for this video
and we look forward to the next one
talk to you then I bet I end up melting
this nozzle a little bit today
oh and I'm lighting the barbecue panes
on fire what's up guys grant here I'm
just working behind the scenes on some
important stuff keep supporting Nate
he's the man and he's bringing back all
the DIY that you've been asking for
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