How to Use a North Star Clay Extruder to Create Ceramic Coils and Hollow Extrusions

If you work in a ceramic studio with an extruder- that is one piece of handy equipment you should know how to use! In this video, I show the basics of how to use a North Star Extruder. I show the stainless extruder package I purchase back around 1999. (My first one I purchased for my home studio in 1996!) Here is the North Star link to that: http://www.northstarequipment.com/Extruders/950.htm everything looks pretty much the same on it, except the color of the dies has changed. I also have a North Star slab roller I will create a video on sometime soon as well. (I love that so much I bought 3 for 3 different studios I have been in!) (And I have 3 North Star ware carts which I love!) Yeah, I like their products- built to last!

In the video, I demonstrate how to make basic coils using a four hole die with a blank or mask cover, and basic hollow extrusions with the Z brace holding the center plug of the die. I demonstrate how to put the dies in, tighten, extrude the clay onto a prepped plastic tray underneath it, take the dies back out, and clean the extruder preparing it for the next time. I ask my students to leave the extruder and area clean and prepped for the next person. It usually takes 10 minutes of diligent cleaning to get it totally clean inside and out with all the parts.

When my students make more coils than they can use in a given class bell, I tell them to place a damp towel over them and cover the whole plastic tray with a couple of bags.

You can use any plastic clay in the extruder, and if you are making hollow coils, it must be VERY plastic to mend back together when it gets around the Z brace. I had a bit of an issue in my demo in the video, but I left it in so you could learn from it. One of my students managed to leave a sponge in the pug mill, and it came through in the pugged clay. This resulted in it hanging up on the Z brace as the clay was coming through, and made a big rip in the side of the hollow coil. After unsuccessfully trying to pull out the problem hunk, I pushed a bit more, and the sponge popped through, and the hollow die was once again working fine. This is a good thing to keep in mind if you ever have an issue with this. Luckily, I didn't need to dismantle it to get the sponge out! :-)

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Also, here is a googledoc list for Amazon links of my FAVORITE tools I use within my videos:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XbYPQjjJnHrQG5xyWGMHZkEcZj5N8VnUAbFZdJRrRmU/edit?usp=sharing

Видео How to Use a North Star Clay Extruder to Create Ceramic Coils and Hollow Extrusions канала KaransPotsAndGlass