how to wedge?

Question

This may seem a bit stupid, but I'm looking for a detailed description [or two] online, on how to wedge clay, preferably with diagrams. It seems to be the first thing everyone learns, but we never did. We always used prepared clay, but now we're in India and our stock has dried out. Books of that nature are not available here, and the mail is dysfunctional, so if anyone knows a good online source, please let me know; or perhaps someone is willing to write a post for the newsgroup. If possible, please email me directly; snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com Thanks, Mark Holden My pressurized kerosene kiln burner plans;

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Charles Spitzer · Accepted Answer

learn to use google.

W_D_GREAT_DIVIDER · Answer

you do a search and your results aren't looking right change the wording.It turns out the Wedging Clay works better than How to Wedge Clay because the search engine doesn't look for these words together.  It just looks for all of those words to exist in the text.

Lcdumas · Answer

Put the exact phrase you want in quotation marks.  Then you can + other stuff."How to Wedge Clay" + Online for exampleLinda D in TX

markkate · Answer

Oh I googled it for hours; believe me, the last place I try to get thistype of information is on a newsgroup.In this case, I've found several hundred courses [in the USnaturally] that offer "wedging clay" or "how to wedge clay" orseveral other combinations of words, as part of their lessons, but noinformation useful to me.That's when one resorts to usenet...Thanks for the links; some information has been gleaned. If anyone hasmore, I'd be grateful.Regards, Mark Holden

Eddie Daughton · Answer

Best place to learn to wedge is from someone who knows how..... Must be someone in India (probably near to you) who could teach you.... Perhaps one of the potters in a local village? Kill two birds with one rock that way, learn how to wedge and find out about local resources... Just a matter of asking in the right way...HugsEddie

Slgraber · Answer

wedging strikes me as being very similar to kneeding bread dough.  is it?  ikeep thinking one day i'll wedge some dough and make some pizza...see yastevesteve graber

Eddie Daughton · Answer

Reckon it be, only backwards, taking air out 'stead of putting it in..... Mr Mills is a good potter AND he makes some of the best bread so there may be summat in it...HugsEddie

Monika Schleidt · Answer

You don't put air into breaddough by kneading it, that happens by itself through a rising agent (yeast or sour dough), the kneading is the same.Monika

jedi · Answer

I once made the mistake of claiming that with kneeding dough you want air pockets in the bread but with clay you want air pockets out of the clay. I was chastized and told that what puts 'air' in the bread is the yeast so I will rephrase it. With the end product of bread you don't care if you are folding in pockets of air since you want air in the end product anyway. You are kneeding to develop 'gluten' - to make the molecules in the bread longer. With clay you don't want pockets of air folded into the clay as you are wedging so you have to be careful not to pull large pieced of clay over 'folds' of clay that have air between the layers. So with bread you are folding one half over the other half with no regard to air being caught between layers. With clay you are not folding over but 'pulling' into the body of clay and then pushing away with the heal of your hand to push out any air, blend the 'mixture' and align the particles of clay.

Steve Powell · Answer

Wedging is not only removing air but also evenly distributing the water to allow an even pressure on the wheel to be evenly distributed throughout the clay. There is also the suggestion that spiral wedging lines the clay particles up against each other making the clay denser and therefore stronger.I tend to think of kneading dough in terms of stretching the gluten but I doubt that much air is trapped just more evenly distributed.Steve.

how to wedge?

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