Pugging demo

One of my Tutors brought us down to the Pug machine today to show us how to Pug some clay.. We are to take care of ll the recycling for ourself to be done by ourselves when we go into second year so this was a good that we were able to get a propper demonstration off her!

First to get the the clay ready.

Firsty go to the bucket with all the recycling clay in it

Check if the clay has absorbed enough water to proceed to the next step..

Grab a fist full of clay and let the water drain out of it for a bit..

..and slap(not literally, careful not to splash things or people with it) onto the board of plaster that is left by the pug machine.

Smooth the top bit out so the thickness of the clay will be about the same so it'll dry evenly.

usually, you wait until the clay on the plaster board is dried, but for today, our tutor just wanted us to have a go with the pug so we used some fresh enough clay..

Get the clay into little bits and have it ready on the table by the Pug.

This is the pug..

This is where the clay goes in..

..and the green tube on the right in the above picture is where the clay comes out!

The jug of water and the towel is something that you need to have when you're using for you must clean the pug after everry use(rightfully, but by the looks of it that doesn't actually happen.. Hopefully that will change next year when we're the one that has to look after our own clay)

My Tutor made it quite clear that she wasn't happy with the dusty clay covered state that the pug was left in, so some cleaning was done before it was put into use!

The little black window that my Tutor is holding is the lid of the pressure room in the pug.

Before putting this back onto the pug it is good to slightly dampen the rubber so the suction will keep it in place better then just having it left there dry.

Now to start the pugging!

Turn the pug on by useing the red turny switch above the pug on the wall, chuck a handfull of clay into the contraption where you're meant to put it into, and you're flying after that!

While you have to pug turned on, you have to keep adding the clay and pulling the black rod towards yourself for if you stop doing this, air will get caught in between the clay and the point in pugging any clay with be lost, straight out the window!

Above, you can see the clay coming out of the pug, slowly but surely! :)

The clay that came out of the pug was put back into the pug again, 2 times it went through to make sure that all the air in it is lost.

Chop chop

Pug pug

Put the clay in,  hold the handle and push down is all you have to do. The only one thing to be careful is to make sure not too much clay is coming out of the other end of the pug. Keep cutting the tube of clay into set amounts and putting it into bags after it the clay gone through the pug twice.