Deouss Mid High Fire White Stoneware Clay for Pottery;Mid Fire Cone 5-7;Ideal for Wheel Throwing,Hand Building,Sculpting;Great for All Skill Levels;Whiteware Clay- Pottery Clay Fires White;5 lbs

This stoneware clay is truly amazing in that it’s as white and smooth as porcelain. It is more smooth, and less gritty than B-Mix and Loafer’s Glory, which makes it excellent for the extremely detailed carving I do. Both of the tiny pots in my pictures were actually carved AFTER the clay was fired to 08. The only down side of the clay is that it has these little black impurities in the clay that I thought would fire out, but some did not. (As you can see in the last picture.) Next time I use the clay, I will wedge it better and pick out the black spots before firing, especially if I don’t plan to paint the pot with underglaze. Overall, I give the clay a huge thumbs up because I have never seen such a beautiful white stoneware that carves this well!!

Santa gave me a new pottery wheel and I had been using air dry clay before this clay to practice with. What a difference. This clay works well, is easy to build a cone and center and my first practice dish here, while not perfect was quick to do and easy to build height and the texture was great. It dries evenly and slowly such that I could fix most of these initial imperfections (on my part) before it fully dried. I haven’t fired anything yet, but I’m loving this clay. It was a bit dry but I dampened the board I wedged on and that helped add the tad of moisture it needed.

Smaller quantity of same clay I wanted, I will certainly order again. No need to order large quantity for free shipping, which is very helpful for myself personally! Great durability, great value, works great for my projects!

Overall, for the price of the clay it isn't a bad clay, it just requires a bit more work than the clay I normally get. So if you are willing to spend a bit more time than normal wedging, the value is good. This clay came fairly stiff, and required me to slice, spray and then leave for about 12-15 hours before it was possible to attempt to wedge it, and even after about 10-15 solid minutes of spiral wedging one half, and slam wedging the other half it was workable enough to throw on the wheel but was still a little rough. Two attempts on the wheel with the slam wedged pieces had both of them breaking when I attempted to cone it up to ensure it was centered, but after taking both chunks off the wheel and spiral wedging them with a little bit more water sprayed on they ended up working just fine. The two pieces I spiral wedged were also a bit rough to cone and required a bit more water than I'd normally use to initially open up a center for my pots. If the clay initially comes way too stiff to even try wedging, I'd recommend first dropping it on the floor from about waist height, 6 or 7 times, then dent it too see how malleable it is. That worked enough to get it unstiffened for me to start wedging it.

I'm no professional ceramist, but my throwing chops are steadily improving. My go-to clay has been Laguna BMix; which was recommended to me and I think is incredibly good for hand-building, slab work, etc. However, my assumptions were confirmed that it seems abnormally difficult to use on the wheel now that I've used this Deouss clay. Granted, I've only been able to throw 2.5 lbs once... But it was so much easier to use that it wasn't a wishful, hopeful mind-trick that I played on myself-- it was just that obvious that this is a better clay to throw. Centering, coning, pulling, and forming happened faster, easier, and I ended up with a decent angular vase that I will end up trimming, firing, and glazing. Oh, I also lost less clay in the process. And just as notable, I needed literally a fraction of the water compared to the BMix. After reading a few comments before I made my purchase, it has to be said that my 5 lbs. showed up DOUBLE-wrapped. The clay was nowhere close to being overly dry out of the box. I am most definitely buying more sooner than later.

The pits. This clay must be old. It is not pliable. It cracks as you roll it out. Glad I only got 5 lb of this mess.

Too dry. Used for the ceramic jewelry workshop. Ended up being cream color, which I liked, but was a bit hard to work with. The texture is fine tho. Needs more water to work with. Finished product is durable.

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