Introduction: The Country Potter - Quick and Dirty Clay Scale

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About: I am currently single, and have been a maker all my life. I currently work as a technician for a comercial Laundromat company. I and my friends have built a nascar simulator, and lot of other stuff, and I hav…

When you are making a lot of the same item, you want every peice to be the same size and shape.
this takes a lot of practice, but the most important factor in making items the same size is starting with the same amount of clay each time.


Not wanting to invest in a 100$ postal scale, or a 50$ food scale, I decided to make my own.

for little or no cost. (made from junk)


you will need

A peice of wood, a foot long chunk of 2x4 or even a peice of scrap plywood.
some baling or structuaral wire. In a pinch, Use heavy guage monofiliment fish line.

two containers roughly the same shape (I used 2 plastic coffee cans.) (actually in this picture, im usnig a misfired coffee mug as a weight, with screws in it)

a weight with a hole in it, (I used one of my cutting wires, but you could use a biggish Nut, or a fishing weight.)

tools:  a drill (or somthing to make holes) , and a marker.

Step 1: Construction

first- drill 3 holes in your board.
one near the center close to the top,
and the other two in each of the lower corners.



attach a loop of wire to the center hole for hanging.


attach a loop of wire to each of the other two holes and attach  the containers.  in this expample, Im using a  old mis-fired coffee cup and a large plastic coffee can.


Step 2: Makeing the Indicator

draw a line from from the top hole down a cross the board.

this is your level indicator line.



make you indicator:

6 inches of heavy fish line  tied to a weight with a loopo at the other end.

hang the weight from the same hook the board is hung from.  this will act as a plumb bob.



Step 3: How to Use:

WORK IN PROGRESS MUST SLEEP NOW
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first decide how much clay you will need to use for a single item.



place that much clay in the right hand bucket.


pour nuts, bolts or other small weights into the left hand bucket until the board levels and the plumb line reaches the red  line.  remove the lump of clay.  the scale is now calibrated to the amount of clay you set it to.

my cup weighs about 1 pound, and I add additional weights in the form of small screws to level out the clay.






Step 4: Beam Balance

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in use:

while wedging your clay place chunks in the right hand  until the scale balalnces. knead these chunks into balls for throwing or manipulating.


of course, this is just a simple beam balance. if you want to get fancy, you can borrow a scale and make weights that are exactly the right amount , but since Im not interested in how much clay (by weight) only that all the amounts are the same.

it works and it was cheap, (as in free , and free is good)






Step 5: Results

and here are my balled up clay- ready to be thrown










and the last are a large number of objects, all mostly te same size, becasue they were made the same way, with the same amount of clay.