Re-using Delft Clay

Hello,

I am just posting here another Delft Clay question and an answer to my own previous posting about Delft Clay.

Through trial,error,emails ,etc I have finally found out that the "Side Hole" in my casting rings was actually made to be used as a pour in hole for flat objects. It does work very well, but when I used the side hole for casting a ring, the results were not that impressive...Maybe someone could explain the process ?

I followed the 3 Youtube clips by Andrew Barry, these were pretty good and made my first attempt passable, I am however quite a harsh self critic so there is always room for improvement.

Back to my question this time, Having followed the Youtube videos, the one thing I found a PITA (Pain in the ass) was re-using the clay.

I hammered the clay back in place in the rings, but I found that even though I used 2kg of Delft in a 100mm ring set, the second casting was trickier as the clay seemed to have shrunk /reduced by quite a bit...Maybe I hammered to deep ? But the detail was amazing, exactly what I was after.....So do I transfer my delft into a smaller vessel and re-cast or do I buy even more clay to completely pack the rings solid with clay ?

The loss of delft from the first casting was minimal around a tablespoon worth but the compacted remaining clay when hammered, left a gap between the clay and the desk top edge of the ring,this moved when I pressed the flat object and I had to keep pressing the clay back towards the flat object...It didn't feel that secure but to be fair it worked.

Any help will be appriciated.

I use petrobond - so very similar to Delft, but infinitely much cheaper from -MINDSET ONLINE

sounds like you have made headway and learning by doing is always a good thing. I just scrape off the burned bits and cut it back with the sand in the bag and just start again. There are several casting videos available. Some are very good and some are unusual. There is Hans Karreman who has done a translated version it is really good too. here is the LINK

Not sure why there would be a difference for casting either top or side