Wedging Tips Wedging may be every potter's least favorite activity, but even if your clay comes in plastic bags, you need to find a way to deal with the scrap. This is an easy way to wedge your scrap clay that will work every time. This type of wedging is especially usefull for mixing hard and soft or lumpy clay. There is a reason to do it exactly this way which I will explain later. Put your soaked scrap, flopped pots or new clay in a pile on a sturdy table or counter. Assuming it is somewhere near the right average consistency, take a cutting wire and pull or push it under the pile 1/2 way to the opposite side of the pile and lift it straight up making a vertical cut. Take the piece you just cut loose and plop it on top of the rest of the pile. Gravity does most of the work here, but if the clay is on the hard side you may have to help it out so the pile doesn't get too high. It is very important to keep the piece you plop down right side up rather than on it's side. All you have to do is keep repeating this exact process. Cut 1/2 way under the pile and then cut straight up. Plop the freshly cut piece right side up on top of the other piece. If the pile gets too tall, just slam it down uther side up. You may not see anything special here, but what you are doing is starting a geometric progression of division by two. In other words, the lump you started with becomes 2 layers, then 4 layers and 8 layers. By the time you cut and plop the clay together 20 times there are over 1,000,000 layers in your pile of clay. You can see it for yourself. 1 cut=2 layers 2 cuts=4 layers 3 cuts=8 layers 4 cuts=16 layers 5 cuts=32 layers 6 cuts=64 layers 7 cuts=128 layers 8 cuts=256 layers 9 cuts=512 layers 10 cuts=1,024 layers 11 cuts=2,048 layers 12 cuts=4,096 layers 13 cut=8,192 layers 14 cuts=16,384 layers 15 cuts=32,768 layers 16 cuts=65,536 layers 17 cuts=131,072 layers 18 cuts=262,144 layers 19 cuts=524,288 layers 20 cuts=1,048,576 layers With a little muscle, a little math and some gravity, that pile of clay has been stretched and smeared into layers so thin that, assuming a 12"x12" pile, if you could take the layers apart and spread them out they would cover 24 acres of ground. If the pile of wedged clay is 12" tall, each layer is .000011444 of an inch thick. That's 100th of a 1000th of an inch thick. I explain all this so you understand that there is a reason to keep the layers flat and parallel to the wedging surface. If you turn the pile on it's side once in while you defeat the whole process. Here are the 3 basic rules: 1. Cut the pile in half vertically each time. You can even cut the pile into four or more sections each time to make the pieces easier to lift and throw down. That is the way I wedge a ball of clay to make a 100 pound planter. 2. keep the bottom of the pile parallel to the table. You can turn the pile upside down and drop it on it's head to make the pile lower, but that isn't a cut and won't make more layers. You can spin the pile, or either half of the pile around to keep it neater. It is often necessary to flip the pile over a lot if the clay is on the hard side and the pile gets too high. 3. Never ever throw the pile down on its side. That messes up your layers. There are other variations that can be used. Some people have a special wedging table with a wire stretched from the front edge to a post at the rear. They just drop the clay on the wire and it gets cut in half. You still have to make sure you keep those layers horizontal. I knew a German woman who had apprenticed in a village of potters when she was young. The old woman who made all the handles for all the families of potters there showed her a way to wedge clay in your hands. You just break a flattened ball of clay in half and throw both haves together almost like clapping your hands. If you do this correctly, it is the exact same process and I use it all the time to get clay nice and uniform to pull handles from. Even the kneading method most potters use is a variation on the same principal. The layers form in a spiral going around and around. It takes practice to do this in a way that doesn't work air into the clay. It also can take a lot of strength to do large balls. I have watched an old folk potter use this exact process. I am sure he learned it from his father as a child , but I have never seen the mechanics of it explained. This information may be useful in teaching others to wedge.