Ask your wife to look at this tutorial from BCUK. this is exactly how I did it. The only difference is that where he uses sawdust I used dry grass that I ground up quite finely. Obviously I did not have access to or wish to use saw dust since I was doing the entire project with only a knife and a firemaking tool. I actually never used the knife even. The only "tool" I used for the entire process was a single solitary match and a match striker. Believe me, with all the dry grass I had on hand on match is all it took.

BCUK Tutorial: http://72.36.134.230/community/showthrea...ghlight=pottery

I would add (and I think I already mentioned this in a previous thread) clay selection is only important if you intend to have your pots last for long term usage. If you only need to boil a gallon or so then good ole mud (though the less sandy/gritty the better) should work fine though after a few uses it's probably going to chip, flake and/or crack on you.

I'm still waiting to get pics developed. I dont usually take my digital camera in to the woods so I have to develop the cheap disposable camera that I used.

You can indeed dig up clay that is "pottery ready." No sticks, or insects invovled unless you are careless. You just have to know where to go for the good stuff. It comes out of the ground nearly ready to use, though some conditioning is necessary.

My former brother-in-law has been a hobbiest potter since the early 70's. He went to a spot near the Kentucky River several times to "mine" his own clay. The biggest problem from his point of view was that it was much easier to buy it, especially after the novelty wore off.

Most modern potters aren't taught the same skills used by indignenous pot makers. Sort of like comparing using a compound bow in hunting to what was used in history.

I had enough sand and debris in my "clay" (maybe better referred to as clay-like mud in my case) to make any potter giggle, and though what I made was not pretty and would not have lasted throughout the ages, it would hold water (had I not been careless and cracked it) and sufferred no ill effects by being put over an open flame for long periods of time.

Well since several threads spawned from the same discussion which I started (under another thread), it was tuff to decide under which thread to put these pics. Since there was a hint of skeptisism in this particular thread I figured why not here. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Sorry this took so long. I just got back the disposable camera from CVS that I thought I had taken on our trip but it was a totally different camera. Who knows how long it will take me to find that camera now. Anyway I didnt want you folks to think I made this stuff up and I did promise pics, so here are some pics I took when we got home of the two pots I made on our trip. I also went out and tried to find some clay similar to the stuff I used on the pots so you could see what it looked like. It's really more "mud" than "clay" IMHO. Sure I could have done better, not in the eight hour time frame in my particular environment.

I took the large pot... the one I cracked badly while adding wood to the fire and smashed it up when I got home so we could really get a look at how well (or not) it fired.

Okay... on to the pics.


Mud/clay similar to what I used.


View 1 of large pot.


View 2 of large pot.


View 3 of large pot.


Nice view of the nasty crack I put in the large pot.


Here's where I started chipping away at it. Also a nice size comparison.


Breaking up the large pot some more.


Breaking out the bottom.


Closer view.


Totally broken up.

[img]http://img153.echo.cx/img153/9990/s10dh.jpg[/img]
Small Pot view 1.

[img]http://img153.echo.cx/img153/7767/s35rl.jpg[/img]
Small pot view 2.

[img]http://img153.echo.cx/img153/698/s43zp.jpg[/img]
View of the small crack I put in pot 2.

I learned a lot from this. I learned, among other things, that 5 small pots are better than one large one. I also learned that these pots will hold water and do fine when put directly on an open flame. And most of all... I learned to be careful when adding wood to the fire! Personally I think if I can do this (the small pot) in eight hours with glorified mud rather than even decent clay, then this is certainly doable in a wide variety of situations. Remember the only man-made "tool" I used was a single solitary match to start my fire (believe me, with all the dry grass I used one match is all it took <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />).

FYI: If youre wondering why part is black and part is brown (obviously you didnt read the BCUK tutorial linked above), it is because part of the pot (the black part) was robbed of oxygen during firing and part (the brown part) was not.

BTW: The small pot is still in tact, sitting on my book shelf. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />