So far, most people only know the type of clay that commonly used to make crafts. In fact, there are still several other types of clay that are useful in everyday life. Each type of clay has characteristics, and benefits that different in function or use. So, what is commonly used to make pottery or ceramics is only one type of clay among several other types.
Basically, clay consists of two types, namely primary clay which is pure and secondary clay which is plastic. There are different types of clay available in Indonesia. These types include the following:
Earthenware Clay
This type of clay is the most widely used by craftsmen. The advantage of this type of clay is the availability of various colors, such as gray, white, brown, orange, and red. Thanks to the high content of iron and minerals, this type of clay has classified as good quality.
Kaolin Clays
Kaolin Clays are usually widely used to make porcelain due to the presence of pure minerals. While the color of this type of clay is light and not too flexible. Thus, this type of clay is quite difficult to form. To produce the best porcelain, it is recommended to mix Kaolin Clays with Ball Clay.
Ball Clays
This type of clay has dark gray color and has little mineral content. So the texture can be very flexible. Usually this type of clay is used as a mixture of kaolin in the manufacture of porcelain.
Fire Clays
Although fire clays do not contain a lot of mineral ore, but burned fire clays still contain iron ore particles. Like the previous two types of clay, fire clays are often used in pottery making, but they can also used as door guards.
Stoneware Clays
Stoneware clay is a type of clay that has elastic properties that reach maximum hardness in temperatures between 1,204-1,280 degrees Celsius. Having a light gray color, this stoneware clay can turn to a neutral gray color when the clay becomes a little more moist. On the other hand, this stoneware clay is coarse and contains particles of sand grains.
Those are some of the types of clay that are important for you to know. So that the clay can be used appropriately to produce an item with good quality.
–sh
