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Plasticfire

A smooth and highly plastic, buff burning, refractory, ball clay suitable as a minor addition to increase body plasticity.

Plastic Fire is mined in Southern Saskatchewn and is both a ball clay and a fireclay. Is has a small amount of added buff stoneware clay to give us some adjustment on plasticity. Plasticfire differs from other ball clays in that it is not fine-ground to 200 mesh and it exhibits some speckles, especially during reduction firing.

We have large reserves of this material and have found it to be quite consistent from mining to mining. Blends of Plastic Fire, Midstone, Kaosand and Palestone produce stoneware bodies of exceptional balance and consistency.

Process Properties

If you are using Plasticfire as an additive to other Plainsman native materials to produce a clay body, we suggest that drying shrinkage of the body be kept under 6.5-7% otherwise drying cracks are likely.

Plasticfire contains soluble materials that are hostile to the deflocculation process, thus it cannot easily be used in casting slips.

Firing

Plasticfire is more refractory than most other ball clays. Like others it can exhibit some soluble salts on the surface of dried pieces.

We do not grind this material to 200 mesh to remove all speckle. Thus Plastic Fire burns to an an-iron speckled surface in reduction, the only ball clay on the market we know of that does this. If you are adding it to bodies in amounts higher than about 30% be careful, you may get excessive reduction speckling and high drying shrinkage.

Glazing

Plasticfire has significant free quartz and thus it exhibits a high thermal expansion. Blends with high amounts of Plasticfire will likely shiver so it should typically play a minor role in bodies that will be used for glazed ware.

Physical Properties

 Drying Shrinkage (50:50 calcine:raw mix): 4.5-5.5%
 Dry Strength: n/a
 Drying Factor (50:50 calcine:raw mix): C110-
 Dry Density (50:50 calcine:raw mix): 1.80

Sieve Analysis (Tyler mesh):

   35-48: 0.1-0.4%
   48-65: 1.0-3.5
  65-100: 1.5-5.5
 100-150: 1.0-4.0
 150-200: 3.0-7.0
 200-325: 5.0-9.0

Fired Shrinkage (50:50 calcine:raw mix):

  Cone 6: 4.0-5.0%
  Cone 8: 4.5-5.5
 Cone 10: 5.5-6.5
 Cone 11: 5.5-6.5

Fired Absorption: (50:50 calcine:raw mix)

  Cone 6: 10.0-14.0%
  Cone 8: 8.0-10.0
 Cone 10: 6.5-8.5
 Cone 11: 6.0-8.0

Chemical Analysis

 BaO       0.2
 CaO       0.3
 K2O       0.9
 MgO       0.5
 Na2O      0.0
 TiO2      0.7
 Al2O3    19.3
 P2O5      0.0
 SiO2     66.0
 Fe2O3     1.8
 MnO       0.0
 LOI      10.3%

Plainsman Clays Ltd.
Box 1266, 702 Wood Street, Medicine Hat, Alberta T1A 7M9
Phone: 403-527-8535 FAX: 403-527-7508

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