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When the muscles ache, the back groans, and the bank account refuses the purchase of a clay mixer, there is only one solution: improvise. Potters had been making their own clay long before the advent of clay mixers and pug mills. Thirty years ago, they accomplished this by soaking the raw materials in an excess of water in a wooden barrel which was agitated with a whirlwind blender. The soupy mixture was then run off into a filter press, a series of canvas bags suspended in a frame with a turnbuckle running through them, which literally squeezed the water out of the clay. The resultant pancakes of clay still had to be wedged, but were of the same homogeneity and plasticity as the pile which is turned out of one of the many types of clay mixing machines today.
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