[Sca-cooks] clay for ovens

[Mark Hendershott]

At 10:00 PM 10/9/2005, you wrote:
>Meva matbúðarkona volunteered:
>>Count me in for such a workshop.  I live south of Seattle in Olympia,
>>WA. I could also volunteer my backyard for building a bake oven.
>>We have thespace and a lot of rocks and clay (in some parts it is
>>about 12 inches to a thick grey clay!)
>
>Have you actually tried to use this grey clay? I don't know the
>details but apparently not all clay is fine for making ovens. The
>clay at Pennsic seems to be fine as a number of folks have made them
>there, as well as things like smelters. The following is an
>interesting story about gathering clay at Pennsic.
>P-tale-MWIFO-art  (23K)  8/26/96    Making Wrought Iron from Ore at
>Pennsic 24.
>http://www.florilegium.org/files/PENNSIC/P-tale-MWIFO-art.html
>
>However, when the Early Period Encampment tried to make an oven with
>the local clay at Gulf Wars, it wanted to crack. I don't know if they
>brought in more clay from the outside the next year or whether they
>added something to the clay to make it hold together better.
>
>>(we have a brick and stone one mass oven in the works - it's on the 3
>>year plan.....)
>
>So, why brick *and* stone? How big do you plan for it to be? Are you
>going to use mortar or clay/mud?
>
>Stefan
>--------
>THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas
>StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
>**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
I think I remember that the usual additive for clay is straw to combat the 
cracking problem.  Something in the back of my mind says horse manure may 
figure into this as well.

Simon Sinneghe
Briaroak, Summits, An Tir