Why Does My Pottery Clay Break After Baking? — Spinning Pots

Compared to the other steps and processes of pottery making, baking the clay might seem to be easier. But it’s certainly not. There are plenty of tricks that need to be maintained while baking clay.

Baking plays a vital role in crafting pots by turning a simple lump of clay into ceramic ware. Here, the clay is heated in a high-temperature range so that it can go through a lot of changes. In the first phase, the water bonds present in the clay starts breaking apart. The second phase leads to the complete evaporation of moisture from the clay. The final stage makes the clay semi-porous with a stone-hard surface.

Baking is usually done to turn a soft and pliable clay into a hard pottery piece, which can bear daily usage. Henceforth, it provides the clay with enhanced strength to become too tough to get washed away with water.

However, mishaps are unpredictable. So, at times, disasters like the breaking of the clay during baking or post-baking might happen. But do you know why this issue occurs? Well, there are several reasons behind this kind of mishaps. And knowing the exact cause behind this problem will help you to work on it and prevent such disasters in the future.

So now, let’s start with the facts that you must know about the breaking of the clay after baking.