CAN A PIECE BE REUSED TO MAKE INTO CLAY ONCE IT HAS BEEN FIRED?

Question: Once a piece has been made and fired is it possible to crush and make into clay again to remake if you don't like?

Answer: Unfortunately, the answer here is no. The reason is that once you fire a piece of clay chemical changes occur. You first are chemically firing out the water which cannot be replaced.

Second, if fired to what is called "maturity" you are actually "vitrifying" the clay particles. Put simply, this means that the clay particles melt partially and fuse together. Once this has been done there is definitely no going back.

You can always turn greenware back into clay. Greenware is clay that has been formed and dried, but has not yet been fired.

Hope that helps,
Happy Potting,
Steve

Comments for CAN A PIECE BE REUSED TO MAKE INTO CLAY ONCE IT HAS BEEN FIRED?

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Mar 10, 2021
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Yes a fired piece can be reused. NEW
by: Anonymous

Its possible, and I have been doing it for years. It takes about 3-4 months to do. The result also isnt really clay, but more of a reinforsive slip thats much stronger then the original clay. The process mainly involves soaking, compacting, and air drying.

Personally I would not recommend people do it with carbon based firing processes,but I have found it works, it can take a long time for the "clay" to seperate, my only result from my raku kiln leftovers took 7 months to make it reusable.

Oh yeah for reasons that should be understood, its illogical to attempt to reuse clay thatsbeen combined with a glaze, wax, etc.

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