Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Primitive Skills => Topic started by: iowabow on July 02, 2012, 10:39:00 pm
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Well if you read part 1 you know where i am headed. Here is vessel #1 finished
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John, you are the antithesis of Wiley Coyote. Ol' Wiley never stepped back and considered what went wrong with a project, never learned....he just went to his big Acme Catalog and ordered a bigger rocket. Something tells me Wiley shoots a wheel bow these days.
You, on the other hand, court the mistakes in order to learn the hows, whys, wherefors and so on. For an artist, you have a scientist's operating system installed in that wet-ware betwixt and between your ears. Maybe that's why I admire you. You are the Paleo-Rennaissance Man! Nice combination of right brain/left brain.
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John, you are the antithesis of Wiley Coyote. Ol' Wiley never stepped back and considered what went wrong with a project, never learned....he just went to his big Acme Catalog and ordered a bigger rocket. Something tells me Wiley shoots a wheel bow these days.
You, on the other hand, court the mistakes in order to learn the hows, whys, wherefors and so on. For an artist, you have a scientist's operating system installed in that wet-ware betwixt and between your ears. Maybe that's why I admire you. You are the Paleo-Rennaissance Man! Nice combination of right brain/left brain.
well said
immensely enjoyed the first post and equally anticipating this one!
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Have you ever heard that filling the pot with " DRY " sand will help even the heat out as it is fired?
Never made any pottery myself but heard that someplace.
David
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Well said JW! John, Man you have added handles to this pot, even a harder area to control the heat. :o Can't wait to see how it comes out. When you weld cast iron, sometimes you use sand to slow the heat loss down. might be an idea, also covering the ware w/ broken ware like you said in part 1. I'm staying tuned in. dpg
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JW thank you! You guys are two nice. JW you should be writing for a TV show show. You have a great way with words. You have to be the funniest person i know.
Ok the pot made it past the first challenge and has dried without cracking.
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What JW said. That's amazing work.. Love the design.. Almost looks like the infinity symbol..
Cipriano
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Additional information
I did not know until reading more that the shell should be cooked in a fire first before crushing. I found it very difficult to crush the shell and this step would have made that process much easier. I think when I make a mistake it is very Important to point it out to the readers so that it is not repeated. Now with that said i should be OK because i ground my shells very well and much of it was dust. I may have some organic matter in the shell but there is not much i can do about it at this point. Also those pots that fail will be crushed and added back to the following firings and will have the shell aready cooked. So if the pots fail again then this is just a step that can be concidered as a material producing step.
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Very impressed John.Looking forward to seeing the finished vessel. :)
Pappy
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Very impressed John.Looking forward to seeing the finished vessel. :)
Pappy
Thank you pappy? Wish I had that pit of yours to fire in. I got the next pot made and now
it is a matter waiting for things to dry.
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I just read a very good paper on the pitfire. I will post a link later in the week when i find it again
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I cant build a fire so this project is on hold till the grass turns green. I is scary dry here.
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sounds like down here in Texas last year. we have been lucky to get alittle bit of rain this year but not enough to lift water restrictions. you have got this and napping down to a art. pure talent
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I picked up about 20 # of shell so i can ramp up production. I also got the promission from the landowner next to the creek to do a clay haul. So i am thinking 100# of clay for the first run.
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Nice shell haul. I can't wait to see some pots coming outa the fire, John!
Now take one of the larger shells, rough the interior up with coarse grit sandpaper, burn the tip of a broken cedar arrow shaft, and use it like a striker on a slate turkey call. Those freshwater mussels make pretty good slates for Ol' Tom Gobbler.
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Nice shell haul. I can't wait to see some pots coming outa the fire, John!
Now take one of the larger shells, rough the interior up with coarse grit sandpaper, burn the tip of a broken cedar arrow shaft, and use it like a striker on a slate turkey call. Those freshwater mussels make pretty good slates for Ol' Tom Gobbler.
No kiddin wow i am going to try that
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I was going to start a post this spring about time the turkeys were heating up..."Show your homemade turkey calls". I have 6 homemade calls and try to avoid going back to the store-boughts. Simpler the better!
Plus, if I forget a Chesapeake Bay bluepoint oyster shell on top of a ridge in the Black Hills I can have a great laugh on whoever finds it and scratches their head bald figuring how it got there!
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I am not able to fire the pottery I made some weeks ago due to the drought. I did go to the clay deposit and make a nice haul.
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I was able to carry 75# out
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#75 Dang strong man. Looks l;ike good clay too. We found some in our creek the other day due to the drought. We found it because the water was so low. It's kinda grey and stinks a little. My boys have been messing w/ it, maybe we need to collect some and bring it home. Good luck, dp
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Dont forget to get shells. Burn them hot in the fire crush to powder and add to clay. 15-20% shell. When you rehydrate the clay use creek water. This primitive hobby has really built up my upper body. I have been carrying 60# of flint all summer but the clay forms to your back nice. Also no quick sand during dry weather so heavy loads are easy. I try to drink lots of water during my trips this makes it real easy.
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Sam called today and ask me if I wanted to take him on a rock run. He wants to start knappin so I figured that would be a great chance to dig more clay before the fall rains come. When we arrived at the deposit we found that a beaver had dammed the creek and the water was 4 inches higher. Where Isaac and I are standing is the clay deposit. I packed another 75#s out and Sam carried out a pack of nice flint. So I now have 150#s of clay and 20#s of mussels. Now I need to process it and cook the mussels. Also leroy sent me a text and told me that he had 5# of mussel he got from the Mississippi. Leroy and Sam are guys we helped build bows.
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It has taken some time here but I am back on the pottery project now that I am waiting for arrow shafts to dry. Isaac helped me patty the clay so it will dry. Once dry it will be rehydrated and processed. If you dont dry it first it will not slump into a slury. A slury is a watery clay mixture. Watering down the clay alows the undisirable rocks and small pebbles to settle to the bottom so we can pour the clay off the top. So 75 # has been set out. The backpark is full of another 75#.
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Why can't you just keep adding water to the clay until it "slumps"? I'm not clear on that point.
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Why can't you just keep adding water to the clay until it "slumps"? I'm not clear on that point.
Water holds clay together when you dry it out those bonds break. When lots of water is added it creates multi bonds and there is space. This is why clay is used in pond banks. Once wet and dried to moist putty like consistency it is hard to dilute.
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Thanks, John. Your patience with us slower students is commendable.
This thread suddenly became much more interesting late yesterday when a friend called to tell me he had been collecting, drying, and stacking buffalo chips this summer. He said he wanted to try making some Prairie Pottery.
Now I am wondering if I can use this gumbo clay out here for pottery. I already know where I can score lotsa freshwater mussel shells.
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The first thing to do is roll it out into a snake. Mark on the table where it starts and then where it dries. If it's srinks less than 10 percent you're good to go.
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Now THAT is one skill learned in Arts and Crafts class that I can still do! Thanks, John.
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;D Iam loving this thread!!! I have always wanted to try pottery but have mever got down to it,
keep on keeping on,
Mitch
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I feel like the clay has dried enough to add water. I wrote this project into my job here at here at the college. So I had to go to the creek to day to get water there my be an ion issue with different water. Then back to the studio to add clay. Water enters the clay so fast the water appears to boil. Tomorrow I start processing it to remove rocks.
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No need to break it up into smaller bits? Just drop in the big chunks and it melts away?
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Thats correct but it needs to be very dry. Tomorrow JW I will mix the clay and screen it. The pictures should help.
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processes photos: First thing was to check to see if the slump worked and it did great. I stirred the mix about 25 times and it was perfect.
1st photo, shows the surface with no wood particles.
2nd photo, shows the minor lumps
3rd photo, shows me stirring the mix.
4th photo, The mixing changes the SP of the mix and causes the waterlogged vegetation to float then all you need to do is strain it off the top before the particles settle.
5th photo, Shows the straining larger rocks out of the mix.
6th photo, The rocks.
7th photo, the clay is stirred agian and the top is poured off to remove heavy sand particles
8,9,10, 11 photos. The mix will settle and the water can be removed for faster drying.
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the rest
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The heavy sand in photo 8 is tossed
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After a couple of days the clay settled to the bottom half of the bucket and the water rose to the top half. I then poured the water off leaving just the slurry of clay.
Today the weather is great and presents an opportunity to test cooking shells on a large scale. With a pile of wood and a 5 gal bucket of shells, I built a layered box fire as seen in the pictures below. I have no idea how this will turn out! I also placed a couple of rocks that I thought had iron in them to see if I can get a color change. Again I have no idea if this fire will produce the red iron results I am looking for. On a fun note the cut wood was from an ash tree that was hit with lightning.
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Note... I used a metal fryer pan to strain for rocks a weaved basket would serve as the same tool in a primitive studio. Skin pots, wooden bowls or ceramic pots would serve as a replacement for plastic buckets.
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You have the most natural desire to see stuff metamorphasize[don't know if that's a word]that I have ever seen.Keep on truckin......LOL.
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The shells are now slake lime but some part are not breaking down so I need a filter to pour the slake through but have not figured out how yet. I think I should have let the shells sit for three weeks to turn to powder. I am still learning this process. I cant decide if I should leave the solution till morning or filter it tonight.
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I went to town and an hour later more broke down so I am going to let it sit over night and all day tomorrow and just let nature do its thing.
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I think that adding water was not the simple process but rather a faster process to reduce the shell to powder. If you just place a burnt shell on a table it will reduce to powder by taking up co2 from the air. This process requires a long time. I figure that if I lived in a fire heated lodge this process would be accelerated. Using water will accelerated the breaking of the shell but it will still need to be dried and CO2 will still need to be taken up. I am still not sure which will be faster. I do know that the water process is more human energy consuming. I have worked out a plan to remove the processed lime. I will stir and pour off the lime material leaving the heavy stuff that did not reduce. This bucket will settle and the water poured back and the process repeated till all reduced material is removed.
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With rain coming I changed plans and poured off the fine particles this morning. The heavy material measured three inches in a 5gal bucket. I feel real good about the burn and should have the amount needed to produce the clay in a few days. The clay will take about two week to be ready. So now I will wait and pour off water as it comes to the top in with both clay and lime.
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Its a good time to remind folks why the calcium carbonate is added to the clay. It will reduce shrinkage during the making of a pot and this helps prevent cracks that form during drying and this material acts as a thermal shock absorber reducing the occurrence of cracks during firing.
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all of the pottery sherds i have found along the missouri river and attributed to the ioway in woodland(iirc) times
have very distinct and visible shell fragments as seen in this piece.
(http://i878.photobucket.com/albums/ab346/sadiejane9/artifacts/DSCN9176-2.jpg)
until your post i didnt realize they heated the shell. tho i did understand why they used it.
really am enjoying this post and plan on using yr gathered knowledge to produce some primitive pottery.
thanks!
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We should have pottery that looks very similar to the example you posted. The particles in many cases are as follows; very small, the size of sand and maybe a little larger. There was a really good paper I read about a site that was excavated and unfired clay was found. They could tell that the shells had been cooked before it was added to the clay. If you take a shell and hammer it into dust you will spend hours getting it processed (you will have the same product as my process). Using the heat and reducing using a dry method (air) or a wet method (water) should produce the same product...calcium carbonate.
In my process I kept the heavy material to examine more closely for particle size and so I can compare it to the lime particles. The picture you posted really seems to support the prefire idea because the particles look very fine and seem more rounded than the pottery I made by crushing the shell rather than burning it for reduction. My first pots had shard like particles because of the hammering. Your photo is great because you can calculate the percent based on the color change (some what), this supports the 20% idea of clay to shell.
I have really expended very little energy in producing the lime and much less than I thought I would with the filtration process.
Filtering the lime...I mixed the shell in a wheel barrel with water (4 gals) and poured off the suspension of material in to a 5 gal bucket located at the right front of the wheel barrel. I then added more water to the mix (about 2 gal) then mixed and poured the contents into an other bucket. I did this one more time with 1.5 gals of water and this was very clear by this point.
Settling the solution.. I went into the house ate and took a shower by the time I returned the lime and the water had separated....then I poured the water off and into the bucket of undissolved shells so I could save it till later. I then combined the two buckets of lime and set it off in a sheltered area.
notes.. I saw a scum on the surface of the water before pouring the water off.. I guessed that it was the surface lime reacting with the air and taking up CO2. These sheet that looked like sheets of ice were poured off with the water as well as minor contaminants floating on the surface, grass, small pieces of burnt wood, and other unidentifiable particles. Surprisingly I now have what appears to be a rather clean sample of calcium carbonate in a quantity that is useable and required very little work other than the thinking part about what would be the most simple and primitive method of mass production. This would have been very easy to do during this time period. The only modern equipment were the containers, a rake, and tongs. All of which can be substituted for containers of that time period. I just don't have the village of materials to draw on to demonstrate this with primitive tools. I will however when I start firing this pottery! hehe
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OK now I could use a little help from you folks! what type of containers do you think I should make and what function should they preform. Some ideas I had were minerial containers for paint, sinew storage, dryroot storage (bloodroot), seed storage, pine pitch storage, and something to hold feathers. I have not thought about forms yet. What ideas do you all have?
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This is a very interesting article. I learned that the shell tempering of pottery makes the clay workable but leaves it porous. I was going to slip the outside and rub it with a stone to flatten the platelets but this report suggest that this pottery was slipped on the inside multiple times. So now I will cut the clay with water and pour for slip. I looked this morning and figured I had just a little to much clay so this should work out great. This report also support the idea that larger pots can be made if shell is used to temper rather than sand.
http://cladistics.coas.missouri.edu/pdf_articles/SEA17(1).pdf (http://cladistics.coas.missouri.edu/pdf_articles/SEA17(1).pdf)
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all of the pottery sherds i have found along the missouri river and attributed to the ioway in woodland(iirc) times
have very distinct and visible shell fragments as seen in this piece.
(http://i878.photobucket.com/albums/ab346/sadiejane9/artifacts/DSCN9176-2.jpg)
until your post i didnt realize they heated the shell. tho i did understand why they used it.
really am enjoying this post and plan on using yr gathered knowledge to produce some primitive pottery.
thanks!
If anone has pictures of pots please post them I would really like to see examples to get ideas from.
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I now have lime which is calcium hydroxide. Everything that i can read says that i need to add calcium carbonate to wet clay. Now the other problem is that they say that the shell was heated and ground to a powder, this would be calcium oxide. So the question is do you add the powder as calcium oxide or as calcium carbonate. See once the oxide hits wet clay it turns to hydroxide. Lime is hydroxide not chalk/carbonate. Help if you have the answer I cant find it in the writings.
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Maybe no connection but lime was added to corn to make it taste better. A pot made with shell would have produced some lime during its use as the calcium carbonate was heated an water present. There is a process called nixtamalization. Maybe not connected but if these pots made corn better tasting then why cook with a different pot.
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I have made a small test coil with the lime added to the clay. I am testing the shrink rate of a 10 inch coil. If it only shrinks 10 percent we should be good. My particle size is very very small and will represent a more refined pottery of the same era (Mississippian). so If you are looking for larger particle sizes then crushing the shells would produce the desired effect as long as you did not refine them too much.
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Keep it coming Professor! I don't have anything to add, but I'm learning alot. ;D
Scott
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The coil is still wet but new clay seems a bit "short" it cracked and did not coil around my finger well.
I have a few choices
A. Continue with the lime into the clay and then when it reaches working consistency store it and let it age for three weeks. the aging will make the clay more plastic
B. add a vinegar to the clay to decompose the organic material
C. Add another clay body to the material that I have
My clay has a very slow dry rate. This tells me that the particle in the clay are very close together and water is having a difficult time leaving the mix. The lime should help with that but will make the clay less plastic so it seems to me that it is a balancing act here between plasticity and porous nature of the clay I have here in Iowa. At any rate it is going to take weeks before I have answers to all of my questions.
What I should know is the shrink rate of the clay by tomorrow. Once the text piece has dried then I will fire it in a kiln here at work under controlled environment. so by Friday that experiment will be done.
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This Mississippian bowl shows no sign of shell tempering, others found with it did. They refer to this type as "sand tempered", don't know it that is true.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/ekrewson/mississipianpot.jpg)
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Thank you Eric for the photo! you are correct that some were tempered with sand there is a good report I read yesterday about that process. Funny thing.. the lime I have added to the test coil is so fine you would never know it was there. Your pot looks thick so it is most likely sand tempered so far as I can tell from the photo. I like the handle lip and things on the side. Do you know what they are for (the round dot looking things)?
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I have been writting to a few other colleges and universities to get more information about the process. So far not good ...just have not found the right guy that has done a ton of it.
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After 24 hours my coil has shrunk by 3/4 of an inch. I started with a 10" coil. So far this is a good sign. This weekend the kiln will fire this peice to around 1200 degress f.
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I found this bowl back in the 70s before digging up stuff was illegal. A bunch of us were hunting arrowheads on Long Island in the Tn River adjacent to Bridgeport Al. As we walked around a burial mound we noticed someone had dug into the mound and left. It had rained and washed out more of the dig, the bottom of a pot and some rib bones were exposed in the washed out place.
We scratched around a bit, turned out there were 5 pots if I remember right, a complete skeleton from the pelvis up and three trophy skulls positioned around the skull of the main man. My bowl had tree roots growing through it as did several others, one pot was pristine. We took the pots home with us but chose to rebury the the remains of the deceased.
I remember one pot had a frog effigies on the sides, don't know what purpose the round spots on my bowl were intended. We split up the loot, don't know where the other pots ended up.
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Great things are happening the heat shrink test worked out nice. There was very little change in the length durning the firing.
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Crazy results the surface was scratched and the clay was orange. Ok now we have more questions.
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Now Conducting a density test on my one sample and looking at areas that were polished a little. The bubbles are not on the polished area. So a new test will be setup up. what I learned was that the clay held up to the water for an hour and did not desolve yet and there were lots of bubbles coming off the pot. The sample also changed the Ph of the water solution so something was reacting with the water. So did cooking pots in the past release something and change the PH of what was in the pot??... hmm dont know yet.
New test:
clay with the shell
clay with the shell polished
clay with the shell with slip
clay with the shell with slip and then polished
A density test will be conducted on these 4 pieces.
What we are testing for is the the water in the sample.
The problem is that a pot that boils water can not have water in the pot because the steam with distroy it. The shell in the clay makes it handle heat but makes the pot porous kind of a problem if you are going to put it on a fire.
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20 hours later and the clay did not dissolve so that is good.
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The clay rod has dried out and looks just fine.
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yr killing me man :)
anxiously awaiting the next installment
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I am still working on data from the g/ml test to determine ratio mixture. I want to make sure that the process is repeatable if it works. I was thinking about making a mix if the shell mixture is dry today and I remember to take the scale to work. Here is my plan:
1 make a clay body and run test for porosity
2 if tests are positive then mix clay and age for 4 weeks to increase plasticity
3 make one pot and test in modern kiln
4 if all is going well then make pots and fire 4 of them at a time, in different type fires.
This is a long processes
5 write article and send to PA to see if they want to print it.
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learned something real cool today about mixing the clay bodies. Dry mix lime will not mix but the lime wet will. it is going to be fun to text this out in the kiln. My guess is the dry is going to pop. lol it is getting fun now
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(http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w401/dw_daugherty/20120621_183147.jpg)
These are some of the pots the people I do pottery with made. These are prefired pots. Hope to get some pics of some of the pots we have pit fired on here soon. The fire really paints the pottery nice!
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Update the technical data is coming in and now pots are being made to test the data. I will keep ya posted. This is a long process.
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John and I talked this morning about what he is learning about making clay pots. What he's learning is that he has barely started learning!
We look at these "primitive" technologies as being crude or simple, when the opposite is really true. He is learning that there are quite a few variables that need to be taken into account in order to make a pot that works LIKE A POT SHOULD! Remember, these peoples made these pots (and other traditional gear) according to generation after generation of experimentation yielding thousands of failures that were expensive in time, effort, and sometimes materials. All those failures took away from feeding and clothing yourself and your family. When they hit on something that worked, they passed that knowledge on. That's what culture is....knowledge that works.
Upshot...primitive skills are something you have to work hard at. If this "primitive stuff" were all that easy, then we'd all have no problem turning out a dozen perfectly matched wicked sharp stone arrowheads the first hour we sat down with abo tools, right? All our first bows would be our last bows because they were sooooo dang goooood! Yeah. Right. Send me $2 and I'll send you a lifetime supply of winning lottery ticket numbers.
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John, I need your address to send my 2 dollars too....... ;D
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Jw is right we have lost so many of those connections. Here is a little more about my thoughts. http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/art--tour-102212 (http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/art--tour-102212)
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just noticed this thread on pottery!
i've been doing coiled pottery from natural clay sources for almost 30 years and would be glad to share info.if anyone's interested
(for examples google: Richard Zane Smith)
learned a lot of short cuts..and trial and error.
I teach tribal members in this area Iroquoian / paddled pottery and we do primitive firings. They start their own fires from flint in steel or from bow and spindle.
had lots of disappointments from finding calcium carbonate or gypsum in my clay sources. they often spall or leave pits....even years after.
fortunately the clays in this area of OKl are the best i've ever used. I avoid creek clays(too much silt) except for making bricks or adobe.
if you work outside, you might consider adding cattail fuzz to the clay.
shuck four cattail heads into a clay slurry..push it under and mix it by hand untill it doesn't try to escape(it floats like crazy)
whenthis clay dries enough to be balled up store it. when you want to make a pot take a pinch of this stuff and knead it in to your clay.
you'll know its enough if you tear the clay and can see the fibers.
if you fire in an open pit
fire the ground for a full 24 hours before firing pots . when the ground is dry the fire won't leave condensation on a mirror held over it.
preheat the pots by setting them near the fire and turning them often . flat bottom pots will break more often than round bottomed ones.
pack the pots in dry woodash . this will initially insulate them from the flame which will kill them.
these ladies had never made pots before, these were their firsts. and they are at it again here, every Saturday.