Subject: Conditioning Kato – Don’t Fold the Sheet!
Hi Everyone;
I know some of you might want to get a jump start on conditioning so let me give you some advice for Kato! That’s what you’ll be getting at the CCLV – some of you might have it at home and bring it along. As I said before, you won’t be conditioning tons of clay so here is the method I’d recommend.
1. Cut the 2 ounce block in half. Condition 1/2 at a time.
2. With you acrylic rod, roll firmly but quickly back and forth to flatten the clay. Keep moving it, lifting, turining it over, so it doesn’t stick to your work surface or to the acrylic rod. Don’t grind it into the clay – it’ll just stick to your acrylic rod! Flatten it to a thickness just a bit thicker than the thickest setting of the pasta machine.
3. Roll the flattened clay through the thickest setting. Now, you could fold and roll through this setting but that would take longer – a thinner sheet conditions faster so, we’ll thin the sheet. The clay would also crumble and then you’d have a mess.
4. Reset the pasta machine, skipping a setting – on my Atlas from 1 to 3. DON’T FOLD THE SHEET. Roll it through.
5. Reset the machine again, skipping a setting again – for me, to setting 5. DON’T FOLD THE SHEET. Roll it through. Folding the sheet defeats our purpose, we’re just trying to thin the sheet at this point in the process.
6. At this thinner setting, you can begin to condition. Now, you can fold the sheet and roll through. Continue folding and rolling until the clay is conditioned. You may get a few crumbles but no big deal. In the beginning, you might have to be careful to keep the clay in sheet form. Whatever you do, don’t mash it up into a ball!
When my clay is very stiff, I condition through even thinner settings, up to 7 – it really speeds the process up and reduces any crumbles beneath the rollers.
For large amounts of clay, just use the Jana Benzon mallet method before step one. Follow the remaining steps. I’ll still demo at registration for anyone who doesn’t read this!
Bye, D