Rehydrating Rock Hard Clay

I love this trick! It's an amazing way to reconstitute rock-hard dry clay. 

The old way involved various steps of adding water and siphoning off water and spreading out the wet clay on plaster or concrete surfaces so it would dry faster, etc. But this procedure takes a lot of time and work. Especially Time - like months!  

Try this instead. Take your old, dry clay. (This here block was like a brick.)

 

 

Put the clay in a bag. The bag must be water-tight, because you are going to put a bit of water in the bag with that clay. So check for holes - very important!

Right, so add some water into the bag along with your clay. The amount will depend on how much clay you have - I used a scant 1/2 cup for that giant block. 

Place the bagged clay into a bucket full of water and as you push it down into the water, try to let as much of the air from the bag out as you can. Don't get any extra water in the bag, though. When it's nearly all submerged, seal it tight. 

It's important that the whole bag be submerged because it's the pressure of the water in the bucket that will press against the bag and force the 1/2 cup of water in the bag into the dry clay. Basically, the dry clay is forced to absorb the water in the bag, and as it does, your piece of clay rock turns into usable clay again.

Check it after 2-3 days or so. And voila! With next to no effort, and in only a couple days, you have lovely, moist clay to work with again. 

I was doing a reno job and found some great rock hard clay in the guy's basement. I took some home, did this water trick on it and presto change-o!

 

A round of applause to whoever figured that out! I first learned about it here. Thank you, EvolutionStoneware, for that great video!