Craft · 6 pages · 12 min
How pottery clay remembers water
Clay plates line up while wet, then warp or crack along that alignment as they dry.
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From the opening
Wet clay is a mass of tiny mineral plates with films of water between them, and those plates slide and line up when the clay is bent, pulled, or thrown. The body keeps that alignment, so a wall that was stretched one way can warp or split later as the water leaves and the particles stay as the hands left them. The opening covers mineral plates slide when wet, alignment stays as water leaves, and forced bends can reopen later.
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Inside
- Mineral plates slide when wet
- Alignment stays as water leaves
- Forced bends can reopen later
- Thick parts stay wet longer
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Particle alignment in plastic clay
- Drying shrinkage and residual stress