Re: SB: Oh, No, Beautiful Clay!

[Speireag Alden <Joshua.M.Alden.91@alum.dartmouth.org>]

Sgrìobh Gladish Family:

>At long last I have a pile of beautiful gray clay!!
>I rented a mixer right away, and got started- but this stuff won't mix!!
>How the bloody heck do you get this sticky, lumpy stuff to mix with sand?
>I have to get a floor down this week if it means calling Redi Mix! My wife's
>coming home and I want it to look like I've done SOMETHING while she was off
>working so hard.

     My guess is that you have a cement mixer, essentially a rotating 
drum with internal ridges, rather than a mortar mixer, a stationary 
drum with rotating paddles.  I don't know how to get the job done 
with a cement mixer, and I suspect that you can't; that's what others 
advised me.  I used a mortar mixer.

     As I recall, I put a bit of water in first, and then a bit of 
sand.  Adding a little sand first helps keep the clay from sticking 
to the paddles, although it's not a big deal because it will come off 
before your mix is ready to go.  Then add clay.  It's okay to be a 
bit liquid at first, and it helps.  The thing is to get enough sand 
in there to act as an abrasive on the lumps of clay.  It sounds 
weird, I know, but it's the sand that really gets the mixing done.

-Speireag.
-- 
To face death, live.

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