*Afterthoughts & Addenda* *Potato Dirt* - a lot of you asked if I could just ask the market vendor for the dirt - I considered this but decided against it - this is a busy marketplace dealing with a constant stream of paying customers; the last thing they need is some lunatic trying to explain at length why he wants some mud.
Shrimp, a lot of my extended family live in the village of Pergamos and Famagusta. Is it possible to ship dirt? (That’s a weird concept). My mum will be going away on holiday there soon. Would you like some more mud? A few jars full? A land next to our home out there is covered by a lovely rich red colour dirt. Could be doable but would take time
You know what I love about your videos, Mr. Shrimp? It's the way you constantly find something new to appreciate about nature and life. Just when I think you've opened my eyes, you open them again. It's such a delightful feeling to look around me and realize every speck of this world is full of curiosities to delight and fascinate. It makes me feel so joyful.
Hey atomic shrimp, am from those areas of Cyprus! Fun fact, the villages you showed are famously known in Cyprus as "RedVillages" or "Κοκκινοχώρια" due to their large agricultural production done in the red soil.
Perhaps you should set up a business exporting the local clay? I had no idea we imported potatoes from Cyprus - I'd have thought the furthest away was Jersey.
Mr @Atomic Shrimp , hello from Cyprus! I've been a long time fan and I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and love for all the inspiration and countless hours of educational entertainment you've been providing.❤As a Cypriot, I feel particularly honoured and proud to be represented in this video, especially since the focus is the soil that gave life to me and my ancestors! The Cyprus spuds are indeed one of the best varieties of potato worldwide, and the villages that produce it are called the Red Villages(Kokkino-xoria) because of the brownish-red colour of the soil. In regards to the black spheroids you correctly assumed could be of volcanic origin, mount Troodos used to be a volcano; so they very likely come from there. Finally, the mouflon buddy is unique in it's own way, since the Cyprus mouflon is only found in Cyprus, and was endangered a few decades ago reaching a population size of 15, but after drastic measures, it's no longer endangered, having now a population of 3000-4000!🎉 Again, many thanks and lot's of love!! ❤❤❤
Good sir! You never cease to impress me with your ideas! The whole "germinating random seeds I found clumped to my potatoes" blew my mind. I absolutely love the randomness of it all!!!
I seem to have very clay-rich soil in my garden. This month I was mixing up soil from my pots from last year (some of which contained leftover soil from my ground) and at the bottom I found huge deposits of nearly pure clay! The rainwater had been gradually filtering through and pulling all the clay to the bottom. Natural clay filtering method, seemed to work like a charm. I might try to make something with it.
You are a master storyteller and a fantastic teacher of positivity and appreciation for the unexpected, weird and unassuming things that are often overlooked by others. Please continue what you do, your videos mean the world to me ❤.
Such a great episode, Mike. I especially enjoyed the 'pre credits' sequence. Anyone who includes the 'hard stare', as popularised by Paddington Bear, is fine by me. 👍👍👍
When I saw the thumbnail I thought you would create pottery from potato-sourced ash. Ash pottery is interesting. It holds water and doesn't need firing.
I love the "trial and error" mentality of your clay working videos! Well, actually, most of your videos where you are trying new ideas or techniques! it is fascinating to watch your thought process
I sort of deliberately leave my research less than half done. It means I get to experience the value of trial and error, and the joy of discovering stuff, even if it's only a new discovery to me.
@Atomic Shrimp "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something" - Franklin D. Roosevelt
I really appreciate the detail about your method of scripting the voiceover. It's little asides like that that show us how thoughtful and aware of your audience you are.
Hey Mike! It was lovely to see an appreciation for the Cyprus potato, it is considered a luxury potato in my family! My grandma used to wash, peel and chop the potato into smallish cubes and deep fry them into chips. Then she'd put them into a clean non stick pan with a little oil and crack a few eggs into there and scramble them together until the egg was cooked. We'd serve this with lemon juice and salt and it was delicious with toast or warm Turkish bread. To make it even more exciting, slice some Turkish salami (suçuk) into the pan before the cooked chips etc and its heavenly! Give it a try if that sounds good and let me know how it turns out! Thank you for the amazing videos as always 😊
Im only half way through watching this video but I just had to say that your videos have been a life line for me I've had a really rough time this last few weeks and watching your new and old videos have provided me with an escape I so desperately need at the moment.. So, thank you for making such great content
7:44 I relate immensely to this, I love to just sift through sand on the beach to find tiny tiny shells or small pieces of tumbled glass. It’s almost meditative!!
Partly it's just that piecemeal writing means stuff is still fresh in my mind, but I think it does work pretty well for a rambling project full of hopes, mistakes and retries.
Your little sifting aside seems like it could be a fun thing to do as a sort of "micro-mudlarking" activity. One could go to a sufficiently interesting source and scoop up a cup from a random spot then sift through it with a microscope.
Loved your telling of the story of Mike and Jennifer's visit to the market! Delightful. And I loved your little juglets and mouflon sheep, also delightful.
This is super cool! I'm loving this informal theme of traditional materials from unexpected places! Re: the clay/water distribution: this is a clear description of an equilibrium of some sort. Possibly has to do with buoyancy of some of the clay particles combined with adhesion. Interphase chemistry/physics is a strange beast
My partner is from Stoke-on-Trent and during some gardening at her mum's, I came across some clay-rich earth (not really surprising from The Potteries). I initially had plans to try and collect the clay and make something but hesitated due to my lack of experience. Your can-do, experimental, "whatever happens, happens" approach to your various projects has inspired me to try and give it a go because...you don't know unless you do. Thank you, Atomic Shrimp.
The most adult 'Blue Peter' channel, that you could find. That takes you places interestingly and intellectually, beyond our ability to care. Because we love it ♥️
I wish I had more to add to all the people who have so brilliantly talk about this video. It was amazing, exciting and with so many wonderful ideas. I love all your videos but this one was truly one of a kind.
The monologue at the beginning of this is cute, def reminds me of when my mom and i go somewhere like the mall and we can't get on the same page for what to do haha
Wonderful video. You could make a bead from the remaining clay. You could make beads out of materials from lots of your videos, come to think of it, and you could slowly build up a necklace representing things you've made! ❤
I awoke feeling a little sick in the middle.of the night. It brought me happiness to see you've done another chapter for this. All the best once more! 😊
This. This is why the internet still brings me joy. Those lovely potatoes and their unexpected secrets. It makes me a little sad that most supermarkets sell veggies so scrubbed and clean that they don't inspire this type of content.
This is the kind of creative spirit I'm always striving for. Completely unbothered with normalcy and conventions, just taking whatever route seems to lead to something fertile. Who cares if it looks silly.
I found the "Time Team" on TH-cam and have been binge watching it and when they find bits of pottery, I always think of your awesome shows on potterty making.
Using steel cans as a crucible was an inarguable stroke of genius. It allowed the clay to be heated mostly by radiation rather than conduction and more slowly than in the direct fire. I don’t think you need to add more holes to your gas tank furnace at all, and the incinerator looks designed to burn quickly, just what you don’t want. Once again you’ve ventured in a direction I never would have considered, one filled with cool implications to think about and play with. Videos like this are why I reject solipsism. 😁
Yet again one of the best videos I’ve seen. You are never defeated. Thank you. This happened many times to my work when I was at school. I still got the 6th year prize and I’ve loved pots ever since. Well done.
I'm a student learning to become a sewage treatment technician. Dehydration of dirt (or rather sewage sludge, which is pretty much mud) is a whole field of study there. From non-assisted to mechanically assisted methods there's various types of settling, pressing, pumping, filtering, solar drying, centrifuging, and combinations of all those available. And it's still being worked on to improve it yet more.
This channel is one of a handful I click on any new upload for on sight. It’s what TH-cam should be and used to be about. No invasive ball shaving product shilling. No annoying ads every three mins. Just a man uploading what interests him, and by extension us. I have no interest in pottery, but I have an interest in Mr Shrimp making well crafted videos about it. Kudos Atomic Shrimp, i doff my cap 🙂
I made some excellent clay from the red earth in my backyard. I filled a bucket with the dirt and then added some water, stirred vigorously until it was all mixed then drained the water. the clay suspended in the water was the finest of the dirt and after leaving to dry in the Australian sun for a few days it turned into a big clump of ultra fine red clay. Super simple, super fun and ending with a quality product.
Mike, another fascinating journey. I never knew I would enjoy seeing time lapse fotography of clay settling. 🐶 Thanks again for unique perspectives on modern living...Jim Oaxaca Mexico
Loving the shopping story at the beginning of the video. And the rest of the video is great too. You're a madman Mike, buying potatoes for the potential clay on them. That's one of many reasons why I subscribed to your channel. We need more people like Mike in this world.❤❤
hey mr shrimp, something rather interesting I recently learnt is a thing is...melting metals in a microwave, Shake The Future has great guides about that, including how to make own crucible, although it does include a few specific compounds... I'm not sure if it'd help with firing clay, and it does take a bit of effort to set things up (perhaps a couple of days), but it is something really unique and cool, imho, and I imagine it would be possible to just use a little bit of metal along with some poorly isolating material (for gradual temperature increase), to kind of build a very very janky setup, lol I'm fairly sure that it is not "your cup of tea", but it is cool, and tangentially related...
Atomic Shrimp can do more with a few dirty potatoes and a camera than a television network can do with a multimillion budget. Wonderful video Mr. Mike! Thank you for taking us along on the journey!🥔➡️🏺
A nicely polished piece of quartz is good for burnishing leather hard clay items. I got a collection of black clay pottery that is very shiny where it has been rubbed by a polished bit of quartz. If the black clay is not burnished before firing it stay a dull gray. But if burnished before firing it comes out a shiny black. My collection was made by a little (about 4 foot something in height) old lady in Oaxaca, Mexico. She came up with the burnishing technique for her pottery. The last time i saw her was back in the late 1960's. Apparently she has become famous for her pottery because i found one of her pots in a museum. It was a little over 4 feet tall. I have no idea how she smoothed it all while she was making it. She would have had to crawl inside of the pot to smooth the inside of it. When she made normal sized pots she had a homemade wheel that she worked on. It seemed to be made of a couple pieces of plywood and a rock and she spun the plywood around with one hand while working on the clay pot with her other hand. Usually she sat crosslegged on the ground working on her clay pots while chickens roamed around her pecking at the ground. Its interesting seeing you making little things out of clay. It reminds me of trying that a couple of times. There is something so satisfying about messing about with clay.
Yay! More wild clay! Thank you TH-cam Dad ❤ i have to say i was very glad to see you grow the clay with the same, but fired clay! Can't wait to see what happened.
Only twenty five seconds in and I'm already laughing my head off! Your voice makes me laugh and I don't know why. Please please, one day read a story on your channel, maybe one of the classics like Dickens or C.S. Lewis? I don't know, just anything like an audiobook from you would be so good I think. Anyway, looking forward to this video. Edit: That was fantastic, what an amazing inspired idea. Love Neolithic Mouflon Friend haha. Yes buy a kiln.
If your going to be doing more I’d recommend making a plaster slab to remove the water from the clay more efficiently. It’s how potters do it, you can get small bags of potters plaster to make a slab with.
One thought about separating the clay from water, If you have some space in your freezer, putting the mixture in there inside a cooler or thermos for a couple of hours so you get a plug of ice on the top might work quite well. It's a method of making clear, low-impurity ice(and can be adapted for clarifying butter). I remember watching a Tipsy Bartender video about, but most clear ice tutorials should cover the cooler/thermos method. Probably not worth making space for, but would speed up the process and be an interesting experiment
"Forbidden custard." 😂 I absolutely love this whole idea you've come up with. Reminds me I always wanted to make a clay oil lamp. Have genuine uses for that…
I made my own clay from dirt exactly the way, you did a couple of times. And i've fired the pieces successfully. A few things i've learned: 1. If you only take the finest clay particles, then your clay will be more prone to exploding and cracking. Introducing some sand or old fired pottery should make your pottery less prone to cracking. 2. Completely drying your piece is extremely important. After completely drying at room temperature, i like to dry them in the electric oven and gradually increase the temperature to over 100°C (above the boiling point of water). I really don't want there to be any water in there. The higher you can go in the home oven, the better. It's a much less aggressive heat and you can increase the heat slowely. 3. Don't put the pottery directly into the flames, especially if you burnished your pot. Contact with flames seems to destroy the burnishing. I like to just surround my pottery cut up metal cans. The way your pot exploded makes me think, that it wasn't actually dry. It might have worked by just drying your pot completely in a electric oven. But it could have also been the lack of grit or sand or harsh direct contact with flames. Hard to tell... Andy Ward has a great channel, about how to fire pottery in open fires. I highly recommend it.
Honestly, Friday is the day I look forward to just for your videos. It makes me simply happy. And when you post another one on Saturday, my weekend can’t go wrong. I like your state of mind: enjoying little things and being interested in everything. Most people need to get really sick or experience a great loss to realize that happiness is in the little things of life and rearrange their priorities.
3:32 I think the physics behind this is actually similar to the physics determining how low in the water ships sinks, except in this situation it's kind of the opposite since we have a liquid sitting on top of a material suspended in the same liquid. Essentially how low an object sits in a liquid is determined by difference in the total mass of the displaced liquid and the mass of the object itself, the depth it sits at is determined by when these two are in equilibrium which also brings the forces of buoyancy and the gravitational acceleration on the object in equilibrium. This is why ships float because at one point they'll displace enough water that the displaced liquid has the same total mass as the ship itself. However in this case it's essentially the opposite, we have the clay which is denser than water, now it's obvious that an object that is denser than the liquid it's in will sink and this is also the case here. However the clay remains in suspension in the water and doesn't really sink to the bottom, why is that? Well that probably has to do with the laws governing pressure in a liquid, buoyancy is a resultant force from this. Essentially the pressure at a given depth of an in-compressible liquid like water is a product of the height of the liquid column, the density of the liquid and the gravitational acceleration. This means that with a suspended material like this clay at a certain depth the "buoyancy" of the water gets cancelled out by the pressure of the above water column. This is where it becomes very similar to a ship because you can sorta imagine that the clay is a liquid (it currently acts like one for our intents because it's suspended in water) that the water "ship" is in, the water can only rise to a certain height before the mass of the displaced clay is equal to the total mass of the water. The ratio between the two phases would therefore be determined solely by the relative densities of water and clay and therefore seemingly remain constant. Now why don't you really see this kinda thing when you mix water and other liquids? Well you kinda do if you whip them intensely enough, that's how you make whipped cream. What happens is that even though you have two liquids that'd naturally separate, water which is polar and a fat that isn't polar, they've been mixed up in such tiny bubbles that the forces making the separate are very small. However if you left both whipped cream (assuming it couldn't rot) and this clay/water mixture sit for long enough it would eventually separate both due to waters surface tension (unless clay is bound by polar charges in which case it wouldn't apply, I haven't looked anything up) and gravity. But this would take an incredibly long time because the clay particles are so finely suspended in the water in such tiny particles that the resultant force of gravity is so small that the drag of water significantly slows down their fall. Similar to how pollen can pretty easily fly through the air. This is also how bacteria can stay suspended in water for a very long time. There's two ways to get around them, one much easier than the other. The first is simply to get a centrifuge and artificially increase the force acting to separate the suspended particles, this is what labs use to separate out bacteria for example. The second and somewhat more complicated one is to aerate the water, essentially just bubble a ton of air through it, this basically removes buoyancy as a force by making sure that there are no liquid columns, this is what sewage treatment plants use to quickly separate suspended particles in sewage water. This is also why aerated water is so dangerous because you will not float on it and fall essentially like you were in free fall but drowning is sadly not caused by pressure but by ingesting water so you still drown. This is also what often is the greatest cause of death when ships sink since often while sinking they carry a large amount of air down with them and when the hull cracks that air is released and aerates the water meaning that any survivors above are swallowed into the water. So basically if you're on a sinking ship your priority should be to get as far away from it as fast as possible. TL;DR You're right the physics is very interesting and coincidentally touches on some of the most terrifying ways to die in this world.
Great video! Investing into a small kiln sounds like a great idea. It will also allow you to melt metal and cast small items, like coins for example. I would love to see that.
Mr Shrimp, once again, I thank you for bringing an immense sense of relaxation to my Saturday morning. Its been a while since I've had a free Saturday. Im sat here in my garden in the sun, eating some eggs, listening to you talk about your projects, and like I said, I just feel so calm and relaxed. Thank you for sharing your passions and creativity with the world.
What a fascinating experiment! I work with clay a lot, and I really enjoyed your wild clay series as well as this one. Hope to see more clay related videos from you.
I am EXTREMELY impressed by your idea for gathering the clay and the patience you have. Great pottery too! I also love the idea of gathering some seeds from exotic source and growing them to see what it was. I watch your videos for a long time now, always absolute pleasure! Greetings from Mexico!
If you fill the drying pan with plaster, it will absorb the moisture from the clay. You need to flip it after a day or so but might speed things up for you. Used to recycle clay at my last job this way
Also that concept of the water never clearing fully up and having the clay 100% settle is what plays into teh dynamics of rivers and erosion. If you have too clear water it’ll erode the surrounding and too much clay it’ll deposit it :3
Hi there Mr Shrimp..saving the middle section of the water that was decanted with the pipet can be used for a super high shine ..apply after the first furnishing with the Pebble..then burnish once again..if I remember correctly this liquid is called terra sigillatta" can also be used after bushing to make a matte finish for contrast...thanks for a great video.
How original and inventive. Thoroughly enjoyed watching that. And just as I thought you've shown all your talents, I find another video to prove me wrong
I just want to say I love your channel the wonderful community of people that have come together around it... the comment section is always full of wonderful comments from equally wonderful people ❤
Just when I think you’ve hit the peak of your content career, another mountain comes in to view. Oh to spend a day as a fly in the inside of you’re mind. I hope you find a garnet.
*Afterthoughts & Addenda*
*Potato Dirt* - a lot of you asked if I could just ask the market vendor for the dirt - I considered this but decided against it - this is a busy marketplace dealing with a constant stream of paying customers; the last thing they need is some lunatic trying to explain at length why he wants some mud.
Shrimp, a lot of my extended family live in the village of Pergamos and Famagusta.
Is it possible to ship dirt? (That’s a weird concept). My mum will be going away on holiday there soon. Would you like some more mud? A few jars full?
A land next to our home out there is covered by a lovely rich red colour dirt. Could be doable but would take time
@@The_Studioworkshop it's a very kind offer, thank you, but I don't have any way to securely receive gifts. I appreciate the thought though.
@@AtomicShrimp you can get things shipped to a fedex store
@@avacado6399 I think the shipment still had to be addressed to your home
@@AtomicShrimp thats quite unfortunate, and getting a royal mail po box is quite an investment for some dirt 🤣
Since you used a can to fire the last pieces, would this make this video a "weird things in can"?
Very nice comment
Weird clay in a can.
Nothing weird about clay juglets
😂
This episode deserves to be nominated for an award.
As is your profile picture
The Most Credible Artist Award!
I agree. Absolutely loved that video. Bravo Mr. Shrimp
The perseverance award.
This channel*
You know what I love about your videos, Mr. Shrimp? It's the way you constantly find something new to appreciate about nature and life. Just when I think you've opened my eyes, you open them again. It's such a delightful feeling to look around me and realize every speck of this world is full of curiosities to delight and fascinate. It makes me feel so joyful.
He's a unique character. And a refreshing change in this world.
@@DLC-sy7pp truly!
Hey atomic shrimp, am from those areas of Cyprus! Fun fact, the villages you showed are famously known in Cyprus as "RedVillages" or "Κοκκινοχώρια" due to their large agricultural production done in the red soil.
Perhaps you should set up a business exporting the local clay? I had no idea we imported potatoes from Cyprus - I'd have thought the furthest away was Jersey.
@@rogink We import new potatoes from Cyprus every year
Simply the best thing on TH-cam, made perfect by your continued dedication to educating the world as to usage of the word 'pudding'.
Shrimply the best thing on TH-cam?
I laughed so hard at the 'in fact, it's everything else' comment.
Nothing better, then pudding with a side of humor 😅
Mr @Atomic Shrimp , hello from Cyprus!
I've been a long time fan and I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and love for all the inspiration and countless hours of educational entertainment you've been providing.❤As a Cypriot, I feel particularly honoured and proud to be represented in this video, especially since the focus is the soil that gave life to me and my ancestors! The Cyprus spuds are indeed one of the best varieties of potato worldwide, and the villages that produce it are called the Red Villages(Kokkino-xoria) because of the brownish-red colour of the soil. In regards to the black spheroids you correctly assumed could be of volcanic origin, mount Troodos used to be a volcano; so they very likely come from there. Finally, the mouflon buddy is unique in it's own way, since the Cyprus mouflon is only found in Cyprus, and was endangered a few decades ago reaching a population size of 15, but after drastic measures, it's no longer endangered, having now a population of 3000-4000!🎉
Again, many thanks and lot's of love!! ❤❤❤
Now that shrimp is a full time TH-camr we’re seeing the more inventive side of him much more often, I love it.
When did he switch to full time YT?
Ages ago.
Good sir! You never cease to impress me with your ideas!
The whole "germinating random seeds I found clumped to my potatoes" blew my mind. I absolutely love the randomness of it all!!!
I seem to have very clay-rich soil in my garden. This month I was mixing up soil from my pots from last year (some of which contained leftover soil from my ground) and at the bottom I found huge deposits of nearly pure clay!
The rainwater had been gradually filtering through and pulling all the clay to the bottom. Natural clay filtering method, seemed to work like a charm. I might try to make something with it.
"In theory, theory is the same as practice. In practice, it's different."
Well said!
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
You are a master storyteller and a fantastic teacher of positivity and appreciation for the unexpected, weird and unassuming things that are often overlooked by others. Please continue what you do, your videos mean the world to me ❤.
Such a great episode, Mike. I especially enjoyed the 'pre credits' sequence. Anyone who includes the 'hard stare', as popularised by Paddington Bear, is fine by me. 👍👍👍
When I saw the thumbnail I thought you would create pottery from potato-sourced ash. Ash pottery is interesting. It holds water and doesn't need firing.
Yes I believe bone ash is the best medium.
That sounds intriguing. Never heard of ash pottery!
@@raraavis7782 m.th-cam.com/video/rG6nzrksbPQ/w-d-xo.html
I love the "trial and error" mentality of your clay working videos!
Well, actually, most of your videos where you are trying new ideas or techniques! it is fascinating to watch your thought process
I sort of deliberately leave my research less than half done. It means I get to experience the value of trial and error, and the joy of discovering stuff, even if it's only a new discovery to me.
@Atomic Shrimp "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something" - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Errors don't exist. They are learning moments.
I really appreciate the detail about your method of scripting the voiceover. It's little asides like that that show us how thoughtful and aware of your audience you are.
Hey Mike! It was lovely to see an appreciation for the Cyprus potato, it is considered a luxury potato in my family! My grandma used to wash, peel and chop the potato into smallish cubes and deep fry them into chips. Then she'd put them into a clean non stick pan with a little oil and crack a few eggs into there and scramble them together until the egg was cooked. We'd serve this with lemon juice and salt and it was delicious with toast or warm Turkish bread. To make it even more exciting, slice some Turkish salami (suçuk) into the pan before the cooked chips etc and its heavenly! Give it a try if that sounds good and let me know how it turns out! Thank you for the amazing videos as always 😊
Im only half way through watching this video but I just had to say that your videos have been a life line for me I've had a really rough time this last few weeks and watching your new and old videos have provided me with an escape I so desperately need at the moment..
So, thank you for making such great content
7:44 I relate immensely to this, I love to just sift through sand on the beach to find tiny tiny shells or small pieces of tumbled glass. It’s almost meditative!!
I love how the narrator genuinely doesn’t know what’s happening next!
Partly it's just that piecemeal writing means stuff is still fresh in my mind, but I think it does work pretty well for a rambling project full of hopes, mistakes and retries.
Oh please buy a kiln and continue your pottery journey! I had no idea I was interested in it until you got started with it, but now I’m hooked!
Your little sifting aside seems like it could be a fun thing to do as a sort of "micro-mudlarking" activity. One could go to a sufficiently interesting source and scoop up a cup from a random spot then sift through it with a microscope.
That's actually a fantastic idea. Just need a high resolution microscope.
What we need is a Michael and Jenny conversation about the ceramic products of the potato shopping.
Loved your telling of the story of Mike and Jennifer's visit to the market! Delightful. And I loved your little juglets and mouflon sheep, also delightful.
This is super cool! I'm loving this informal theme of traditional materials from unexpected places!
Re: the clay/water distribution: this is a clear description of an equilibrium of some sort. Possibly has to do with buoyancy of some of the clay particles combined with adhesion. Interphase chemistry/physics is a strange beast
My partner is from Stoke-on-Trent and during some gardening at her mum's, I came across some clay-rich earth (not really surprising from The Potteries). I initially had plans to try and collect the clay and make something but hesitated due to my lack of experience. Your can-do, experimental, "whatever happens, happens" approach to your various projects has inspired me to try and give it a go because...you don't know unless you do.
Thank you, Atomic Shrimp.
An elaborate ruse to acquire delicious potatoes!
The most adult 'Blue Peter' channel, that you could find. That takes you places interestingly and intellectually, beyond our ability to care. Because we love it ♥️
I wish I had more to add to all the people who have so brilliantly talk about this video. It was amazing, exciting and with so many wonderful ideas. I love all your videos but this one was truly one of a kind.
that mouflon friend was so cute, thank you for making my day
"They smell of dust...and sadness"...wow. not only does that hit me as a bibliophile, it also describes many homes ive entered
The monologue at the beginning of this is cute, def reminds me of when my mom and i go somewhere like the mall and we can't get on the same page for what to do haha
this is seriously some of the most interesting, joyful, and creative content on youtube. this is what the internet should be for.
The bedtime story-style narration is so lovely
There is, you'll agree, a certain 'je ne sais quoi' oh so very special about a firm, young... Cypriot new potato. Great vid as always Mr Shrimp!
Wonderful video. You could make a bead from the remaining clay. You could make beads out of materials from lots of your videos, come to think of it, and you could slowly build up a necklace representing things you've made! ❤
That's an excellent idea!
@@AtomicShrimp thank you! Don't forget the HDPE! That'd make a splendid bead!
Absolutely fascinating what you found in something as mundane as dirt on taters precious, fantastic video.
I awoke feeling a little sick in the middle.of the night. It brought me happiness to see you've done another chapter for this.
All the best once more! 😊
This is possibly the weirdest content on TH-cam. Love it. Eccentricity at its best. I salute you atomicshrimp!
This. This is why the internet still brings me joy. Those lovely potatoes and their unexpected secrets.
It makes me a little sad that most supermarkets sell veggies so scrubbed and clean that they don't inspire this type of content.
This is the kind of creative spirit I'm always striving for. Completely unbothered with normalcy and conventions, just taking whatever route seems to lead to something fertile. Who cares if it looks silly.
I’m so sad for your first lovely juglet! I was really rooting for that little guy.
I found the "Time Team" on TH-cam and have been binge watching it and when they find bits of pottery, I always think of your awesome shows on potterty making.
Never would I have thought of using the dirt on potatoes for clay or hobbycraft, yet it's so obvious!
Using steel cans as a crucible was an inarguable stroke of genius. It allowed the clay to be heated mostly by radiation rather than conduction and more slowly than in the direct fire. I don’t think you need to add more holes to your gas tank furnace at all, and the incinerator looks designed to burn quickly, just what you don’t want.
Once again you’ve ventured in a direction I never would have considered, one filled with cool implications to think about and play with. Videos like this are why I reject solipsism. 😁
Yet again one of the best videos I’ve seen. You are never defeated. Thank you. This happened many times to my work when I was at school. I still got the 6th year prize and I’ve loved pots ever since. Well done.
I absolutely love all your content, but something about this specific video was exactly what I needed - will definitely return to this again and again
Juglet is my word of the week now.
This was absolutely awesome! Thank you so much. The different tempos and parts of the video were really well put together! The pieces are so cute.
the first pot was not a failure, it was a successful lesson, this was really nice to watch and we all learned from your lesson
I'm a student learning to become a sewage treatment technician. Dehydration of dirt (or rather sewage sludge, which is pretty much mud) is a whole field of study there. From non-assisted to mechanically assisted methods there's various types of settling, pressing, pumping, filtering, solar drying, centrifuging, and combinations of all those available. And it's still being worked on to improve it yet more.
This channel is one of a handful I click on any new upload for on sight.
It’s what TH-cam should be and used to be about. No invasive ball shaving product shilling. No annoying ads every three mins.
Just a man uploading what interests him, and by extension us. I have no interest in pottery, but I have an interest in Mr Shrimp making well crafted videos about it.
Kudos Atomic Shrimp, i doff my cap 🙂
Love the reference to Uncle Monty! Lol the cauliflower is more beautiful than the rose!
I made some excellent clay from the red earth in my backyard. I filled a bucket with the dirt and then added some water, stirred vigorously until it was all mixed then drained the water. the clay suspended in the water was the finest of the dirt and after leaving to dry in the Australian sun for a few days it turned into a big clump of ultra fine red clay. Super simple, super fun and ending with a quality product.
Yeah, quite often when I watch stuff about gold or opal hunters in Australia, I'm really looking at that beautiful red clay
Mike, another fascinating journey. I never knew I would enjoy seeing time lapse fotography of clay settling. 🐶 Thanks again for unique perspectives on modern living...Jim Oaxaca Mexico
You are the most wonderfully eclectic British person I have ever encountered, and your strange and wonderful videos never cease to amaze!
Loving the shopping story at the beginning of the video. And the rest of the video is great too. You're a madman Mike, buying potatoes for the potential clay on them. That's one of many reasons why I subscribed to your channel. We need more people like Mike in this world.❤❤
I was laughing during the beginning at your harvesting journey. Thank you.
hey mr shrimp, something rather interesting I recently learnt is a thing is...melting metals in a microwave, Shake The Future has great guides about that, including how to make own crucible, although it does include a few specific compounds...
I'm not sure if it'd help with firing clay, and it does take a bit of effort to set things up (perhaps a couple of days), but it is something really unique and cool, imho, and I imagine it would be possible to just use a little bit of metal along with some poorly isolating material (for gradual temperature increase), to kind of build a very very janky setup, lol
I'm fairly sure that it is not "your cup of tea", but it is cool, and tangentially related...
Talk about left field ideas! I take my hat off to you, this is why your channel keeps me interested, you never run out of ideas
Atomic Shrimp can do more with a few dirty potatoes and a camera than a television network can do with a multimillion budget. Wonderful video Mr. Mike! Thank you for taking us along on the journey!🥔➡️🏺
A nicely polished piece of quartz is good for burnishing leather hard clay items. I got a collection of black clay pottery that is very shiny where it has been rubbed by a polished bit of quartz. If the black clay is not burnished before firing it stay a dull gray. But if burnished before firing it comes out a shiny black.
My collection was made by a little (about 4 foot something in height) old lady in Oaxaca, Mexico. She came up with the burnishing technique for her pottery. The last time i saw her was back in the late 1960's. Apparently she has become famous for her pottery because i found one of her pots in a museum. It was a little over 4 feet tall. I have no idea how she smoothed it all while she was making it. She would have had to crawl inside of the pot to smooth the inside of it. When she made normal sized pots she had a homemade wheel that she worked on. It seemed to be made of a couple pieces of plywood and a rock and she spun the plywood around with one hand while working on the clay pot with her other hand. Usually she sat crosslegged on the ground working on her clay pots while chickens roamed around her pecking at the ground.
Its interesting seeing you making little things out of clay. It reminds me of trying that a couple of times. There is something so satisfying about messing about with clay.
The most shrimpy video ever. We love it.
Yay! More wild clay! Thank you TH-cam Dad ❤ i have to say i was very glad to see you grow the clay with the same, but fired clay! Can't wait to see what happened.
Only twenty five seconds in and I'm already laughing my head off! Your voice makes me laugh and I don't know why. Please please, one day read a story on your channel, maybe one of the classics like Dickens or C.S. Lewis? I don't know, just anything like an audiobook from you would be so good I think.
Anyway, looking forward to this video.
Edit: That was fantastic, what an amazing inspired idea. Love Neolithic Mouflon Friend haha. Yes buy a kiln.
If your going to be doing more I’d recommend making a plaster slab to remove the water from the clay more efficiently. It’s how potters do it, you can get small bags of potters plaster to make a slab with.
One thought about separating the clay from water, If you have some space in your freezer, putting the mixture in there inside a cooler or thermos for a couple of hours so you get a plug of ice on the top might work quite well. It's a method of making clear, low-impurity ice(and can be adapted for clarifying butter). I remember watching a Tipsy Bartender video about, but most clear ice tutorials should cover the cooler/thermos method. Probably not worth making space for, but would speed up the process and be an interesting experiment
"Forbidden custard." 😂
I absolutely love this whole idea you've come up with.
Reminds me I always wanted to make a clay oil lamp.
Have genuine uses for that…
I made my own clay from dirt exactly the way, you did a couple of times. And i've fired the pieces successfully. A few things i've learned:
1. If you only take the finest clay particles, then your clay will be more prone to exploding and cracking. Introducing some sand or old fired pottery should make your pottery less prone to cracking.
2. Completely drying your piece is extremely important. After completely drying at room temperature, i like to dry them in the electric oven and gradually increase the temperature to over 100°C (above the boiling point of water). I really don't want there to be any water in there. The higher you can go in the home oven, the better. It's a much less aggressive heat and you can increase the heat slowely.
3. Don't put the pottery directly into the flames, especially if you burnished your pot. Contact with flames seems to destroy the burnishing. I like to just surround my pottery cut up metal cans.
The way your pot exploded makes me think, that it wasn't actually dry. It might have worked by just drying your pot completely in a electric oven. But it could have also been the lack of grit or sand or harsh direct contact with flames. Hard to tell...
Andy Ward has a great channel, about how to fire pottery in open fires. I highly recommend it.
Honestly, Friday is the day I look forward to just for your videos. It makes me simply happy. And when you post another one on Saturday, my weekend can’t go wrong. I like your state of mind: enjoying little things and being interested in everything. Most people need to get really sick or experience a great loss to realize that happiness is in the little things of life and rearrange their priorities.
3:32 I think the physics behind this is actually similar to the physics determining how low in the water ships sinks, except in this situation it's kind of the opposite since we have a liquid sitting on top of a material suspended in the same liquid. Essentially how low an object sits in a liquid is determined by difference in the total mass of the displaced liquid and the mass of the object itself, the depth it sits at is determined by when these two are in equilibrium which also brings the forces of buoyancy and the gravitational acceleration on the object in equilibrium. This is why ships float because at one point they'll displace enough water that the displaced liquid has the same total mass as the ship itself. However in this case it's essentially the opposite, we have the clay which is denser than water, now it's obvious that an object that is denser than the liquid it's in will sink and this is also the case here. However the clay remains in suspension in the water and doesn't really sink to the bottom, why is that? Well that probably has to do with the laws governing pressure in a liquid, buoyancy is a resultant force from this. Essentially the pressure at a given depth of an in-compressible liquid like water is a product of the height of the liquid column, the density of the liquid and the gravitational acceleration. This means that with a suspended material like this clay at a certain depth the "buoyancy" of the water gets cancelled out by the pressure of the above water column.
This is where it becomes very similar to a ship because you can sorta imagine that the clay is a liquid (it currently acts like one for our intents because it's suspended in water) that the water "ship" is in, the water can only rise to a certain height before the mass of the displaced clay is equal to the total mass of the water. The ratio between the two phases would therefore be determined solely by the relative densities of water and clay and therefore seemingly remain constant.
Now why don't you really see this kinda thing when you mix water and other liquids? Well you kinda do if you whip them intensely enough, that's how you make whipped cream. What happens is that even though you have two liquids that'd naturally separate, water which is polar and a fat that isn't polar, they've been mixed up in such tiny bubbles that the forces making the separate are very small. However if you left both whipped cream (assuming it couldn't rot) and this clay/water mixture sit for long enough it would eventually separate both due to waters surface tension (unless clay is bound by polar charges in which case it wouldn't apply, I haven't looked anything up) and gravity. But this would take an incredibly long time because the clay particles are so finely suspended in the water in such tiny particles that the resultant force of gravity is so small that the drag of water significantly slows down their fall. Similar to how pollen can pretty easily fly through the air. This is also how bacteria can stay suspended in water for a very long time. There's two ways to get around them, one much easier than the other. The first is simply to get a centrifuge and artificially increase the force acting to separate the suspended particles, this is what labs use to separate out bacteria for example. The second and somewhat more complicated one is to aerate the water, essentially just bubble a ton of air through it, this basically removes buoyancy as a force by making sure that there are no liquid columns, this is what sewage treatment plants use to quickly separate suspended particles in sewage water. This is also why aerated water is so dangerous because you will not float on it and fall essentially like you were in free fall but drowning is sadly not caused by pressure but by ingesting water so you still drown. This is also what often is the greatest cause of death when ships sink since often while sinking they carry a large amount of air down with them and when the hull cracks that air is released and aerates the water meaning that any survivors above are swallowed into the water. So basically if you're on a sinking ship your priority should be to get as far away from it as fast as possible.
TL;DR You're right the physics is very interesting and coincidentally touches on some of the most terrifying ways to die in this world.
This is gradually becoming one of my favorite channels.
These are the coolest projects.
Great video! Investing into a small kiln sounds like a great idea. It will also allow you to melt metal and cast small items, like coins for example. I would love to see that.
Mr Shrimp, once again, I thank you for bringing an immense sense of relaxation to my Saturday morning.
Its been a while since I've had a free Saturday. Im sat here in my garden in the sun, eating some eggs, listening to you talk about your projects, and like I said, I just feel so calm and relaxed.
Thank you for sharing your passions and creativity with the world.
What a fascinating experiment! I work with clay a lot, and I really enjoyed your wild clay series as well as this one. Hope to see more clay related videos from you.
Who's more silly the man who was excited for potato dirt or all the people watching?
It's always a good day when Mike posts a video about clay. I'm really happy Mufflon friend survived the firing process! So cute!
"That was a lot of weird effort" describes a lot of crafting projects with found/foraged items
When the goat and the jug came out of the kiln, i realised that I'd actually forgotten that potatoes were even involved. I was nearly in a coma.😂
My family and I continue to love your video's. It helps me as a dad to show my kids new things we can try!
I am EXTREMELY impressed by your idea for gathering the clay and the patience you have. Great pottery too! I also love the idea of gathering some seeds from exotic source and growing them to see what it was. I watch your videos for a long time now, always absolute pleasure! Greetings from Mexico!
That was informative and fun. The rusty tools and books smelling of dust and sadness told me I was in the right place. Very relaxing to watch.
I haven't seen Cypriot potatoes in forever and they are so delicious!
“I happen to think the cauliflower more beautiful than the rose.”
Of course you do Uncle Monty.
I fully expect to see Mike prowling around in the middle of the fucking night.
Eva ear scratch interlude was just perfect!
Really fun idea, looking forward to seeing how the final one turns out!
i love seeing eva all cosy by the fire :') and what a cute little juglet, even in its fired pieces!
If you fill the drying pan with plaster, it will absorb the moisture from the clay. You need to flip it after a day or so but might speed things up for you. Used to recycle clay at my last job this way
It may not mean a lot to most but to you it made you happy and I'm glad you do videos you enjoy
Truly a man of unbridled culture. Love the pottery series 👌 really educational and speculative.
You're going to make this into an award winning children's book, hopefully! Better than Dr Seuss!
Leave it to Mr. Shrimp to come up with the most creative methods of creation. Inspiring! Thank you for sharing :)
Also that concept of the water never clearing fully up and having the clay 100% settle is what plays into teh dynamics of rivers and erosion. If you have too clear water it’ll erode the surrounding and too much clay it’ll deposit it :3
Weird effort is a main reason you're a great inspiration to a lot of people :)
Hi there Mr Shrimp..saving the middle section of the water that was decanted with the pipet can be used for a super high shine ..apply after the first furnishing with the Pebble..then burnish once again..if I remember correctly this liquid is called terra sigillatta" can also be used after bushing to make a matte finish for contrast...thanks for a great video.
Last time I worked with clay was 40 years ago in school. This looked way more fun though.
How original and inventive. Thoroughly enjoyed watching that. And just as I thought you've shown all your talents, I find another video to prove me wrong
I just want to say I love your channel the wonderful community of people that have come together around it... the comment section is always full of wonderful comments from equally wonderful people ❤
Just when I think you’ve hit the peak of your content career, another mountain comes in to view. Oh to spend a day as a fly in the inside of you’re mind. I hope you find a garnet.
You have to be the most creative chap in the world! Well done! Brilliant video!