Making a Clay Trap Without a Sink
Behind the glamorous facade of ceramics is basically a whole lotta mess. One of my biggest concerns in setting up a wheel to throw at home was what to do with my waste water. The water used in throwing, and cleaning tools and surfaces gets full of clay particles - chucking it down the drain will result in disaster once those particles settle and form a lovely clay sediment to block the plumbing!
Pottery studios usually use a clay trap between the sink and drainage pipes, and these tend to be made from plastic boxes. Dirty water goes in from the sink, and though a process of sedimentation and a series of boxes / buckets, clear water goes out down the drain.
I found some great guides to making them online and settled on using this one for my project https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/daily/article/How-to-Make-a-Simple-Triple-Stage-Clay-Trap The tricky part is that I don’t have running water in my home pottery setup. However, I do have an outside drain. So my plan was to adapt the clay trap to have dirty water poured in from a bucket, and the clean water pour out over my outside drain.
Instead of a pipe coming in from the sink, I fitted a funnel into the box lid.
And to replace the pipe coming out to the drain, I used a water butt tap.
Fitting everything together was super satisfying! Here’s some photos of it coming together:
In total, the materials cost around £50 and I got everything at B&Q. I put lids on the inner boxes, simply because there was an offer on them. Here’s my shopping list:
Large outer box - https://www.diy.com/departments/kaze-clear-138l-plastic-xxxl-storage-box/3663602763185_BQ.prd
Lid for outer box - https://www.diy.com/departments/kaze-clear-plastic-xl-xxxl-stackable-lid-for-50l-138l-boxes/3663602763253_BQ.prd
Funnel - https://www.diy.com/departments/5397007196139-b-q-multi-funnel-fs001/988554_BQ.prd
Water butt tap - https://www.diy.com/departments/ward-water-butt-tap/792646_BQ.prd
2 x inner box - https://www.diy.com/departments/xago-heavy-duty-clear-24l-plastic-medium-stackable-storage-box-lid/3663602248859_BQ.prd
2 x 32mm push fit knuckle bend - https://www.diy.com/departments/floplast-push-fit-waste-knuckle-bend-dia-32mm-white/35050_BQ.prd
2 x 32mm push fit waste tank connector - https://www.diy.com/departments/floplast-push-fit-waste-tank-connector-dia-32mm-grey/152668_BQ.prd
32mm push fit pipe - https://www.diy.com/departments/floplast-push-fit-waste-pipe-dia-32mm-white/152659_BQ.prd
Silicone to seal around the funnel and tap.
EDIT: I made a rookie error by using a clear outer box. The standing water is full of algae due to the sunlight. If you can, use an opaque box! I think I’ll be painting mine black - once I’ve cleaned it all out…
I’ve been getting lots of visitors to this page lately. I’d love it if you could leave a comment to let me know how you found it, and if you have made your own clay trap :)
