FreeShip- C1 Clay Substitute - (Prompt rebate on orders with 3 or more FreeShip items!)

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C1 Tile Clay was no longer available sometime in the mid-1990's. This listing is for a current close substitute to that clay. C1 was an unusually low shrinkage and high dry strength clay. Reportedly a gold mining company owned the land where C1 had been quarried. They decided it was worth more as a site to put fill from their gold mining into the C1 quarry, and thus C1 became unavailable.
The Digital Fire ceramics database has some info on CI clay { https://digitalfire.com/4sight/material/c-1_clay_156.html } :
"C-1 clay is a unique, plastic clay with unusually high dry strength, low firing shrinkage and excellent pressing properties. It has superb plastic properties for a wide variety of applications. It is obtained from a large deposit of hydrothermally altered rhyolitic material located in the Mojave Desert of Southern California. It is an ideal material in combination with talc for the production of ceramic wall tile. The unusual plastic properties of C-1 Clay make it suitable for the manufacture of pottery and other ceramic ware by the plastic forming process. Careful selection of materials during mining and the use of a large blended stockpile assure uniformity of composition and quality.
C1 clay and PV clay as reasonably similar in properties. However, PV clay is whiter and does not have the microfine speck sometimes seen in C1. In addition it is not as plastic and will need to be augmented by a white-firing bentonite.
[Properties:]
Specific Gravity: 2.7
Apparent Density: 50 lb/cu ft
Tapped Density: 62 lb/cu ft
200 Mesh retained: 6.0%
Particle shape: Granular
Dry Brightness: 70
pH Value: 8.5

[Analysis:]
C-1 Clay
Oxide Analysis Formula
CaO 1.32% 0.159
MgO 0.51% 0.086
K2O 1.73% 0.124
Na2O 0.20% 0.022
Al2O3 15.09% 1.000
SiO2 74.43% 8.371
Fe2O3 0.41% 0.017
LOI 6.30
Oxide Weight 633.29
Formula Weight 675.87"

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In Laguna's old printed catalog there is this analysis:

C-1 CLAY
SiO2 .................75.6%
Al2O3 ...............15.8%
Fe2O3.................0.4%
TiO2....................0.1%
MgO ...................0.5%
CaO ...................0.8%
Na2O ..................0.5%
K2O.....................1.55%
Loss on Ignition..4.84%

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It's difficult to find anymore on CI clay. Continuing with the Digital Fire database, it has some good information on tile clay bodies in general:
{ https://digitalfire.com/4sight/education/ceramic_tile_clay_body_formulation_336.html } :
"The ceramic tile industry is by far the largest user of clay bodies in ceramics. If you are a technician from another sector of [the] ceramic industry the dust pressing process of compacting 8% moisture powder at 500 kg/cm2 seems foreign. You may wonder what types of body formulations are used in tile. Not surprisingly, the familiar principles apply. Tiles need to develop high fired strength in the kiln....Dry tiles must of course have strength so they can be handled and survive glazing operations. Generally bodies are needed that fire strong at the lowest possible temperatures."

What is "dust pressing"?
If you're interested, here is a really easy to understand explanation for the ceramics layman from "how stuff works" (it doesn't include firing or glazing, just forming the dry greenware):
{ https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/construction/materials/how-is-ceramic-tile-made1.htm } :
"Ceramic tile starts life as a lump of earth -- everything in that final product is a natural material...clay is the main ingredient, along with other items such as sand, feldspar, quartz and water. These ingredients are mixed and grounded up...to create what's known as the body slip. Body slip is used to differentiate the body of the tile from its glazed topping; it's the...cake to frosting. At this point, the body slip contains about 30 percent water. That moisture helps adhere the ingredients....but as soon as its job is done, it's out of there....the body slip is put into a dryer and heated; the moisture content is reduced to about 6 percent.
After that time in the dryer, the body slip is now essentially powder, or dust...This entire process is sometimes called dust pressing....The dust is placed into a large press...[which] pushes the dust into a set size and shape with a force ranging from a few hundred pounds a square inch to 100,000 pounds per square inch. That pressure is what gives the finished product its...strength. While we commonly see square or rectangular ceramic tile, presses may have shaped imprints to create ovals, diamonds and other unique shapes as well...After the body is formed, it's dried out to remove all last traces of moisture..." And next comes glazing and firing. Read the rest of the article to get the full story.-

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