Week 3 Lab: Group B Pottery Data

Clay Forming

My group — consisting of Margaret, Max, and myself — had to create a clay body that was 500g clay and 100g temper. The temper was made up of 80g of sand, 18g of gravel, and 2g of chaff. The chaff came in two varieties: small wood chippings and long strands of straw. Each member of the group used a different composition of the two chaffs. Margaret used exclusively wood chippings, I used exclusively straw, and Max used a combination of both. When we started working the clay, it was difficult to see how the clay body would incorporate the temper. However, after a while, the temper was properly incorporated, and we could get to work on our pinch pots.

Here are the proportions of clay and individual tempers in our final clay bodies:

Material	Clay	Sand	Gravel	Chaff
Proportion (approximate)	83.3%	13.3%	3.3%	0.03%

Group Data

Margaret’s Data

	Original	After 1 day	Loss	Before Firing	Loss	After Firing	Total Loss
Weight	578 g	521 g	57 g	493 g	28 g	364 g	214 g
Height	7.1 cm	6.6 cm	0.5 cm	6.6 cm	0 cm	6.6 cm	0.5 cm
Diameter (rim)	10.2 cm	9.5 cm	0.7 cm	9.5 cm	0 cm	9.3 cm	0.9 cm
Diameter (widest)	11.6 cm	10.7 cm	0.9 cm	10.7 cm	0 cm	10.6 cm	1 cm
Wall section	1.1 cm	0.927 cm	0.173 cm	0.927 cm	0 cm	0.933 cm	0.167 cm

Max’s Data

	Original	After 1 day	Loss	After firing	Total Loss
Weight	579 g	521 g	58 g	471 g	108 g
Height	9.9 cm	9.1 cm	0.8 cm	9.2 cm	0.7 cm
Diameter (rim)	7.7 cm	7.3 cm	0.4 cm	7.5 cm	0.2 cm
Diameter (widest)	9.8 cm	9.4 cm	0.4 cm	9.4 cm	0.4 cm
Wall section	0.8 cm	0.66 cm	0.14 cm	0.689 cm	0.111 cm

Siddharth’s Data

	Original	After 1 day	Loss	After firing	Total Loss
Weight	574 g	507 g	67 g	447 g	127 g
Height	4.5 cm	4.4 cm	0.1 cm	4.3 cm	0.2 cm
Diameter (rim)	2.75 cm	2.6 cm	0.15 cm	2.45 cm	0.3 cm
Diameter (widest)	9.6 cm	9.5 cm	0.1 cm	9.4 cm	0.2 cm
Wall section	0.674 cm	0.525 cm	0.149 cm	0.478 cm	0.196 cm