All Glossary

Sieve Shaker

A device that can vibrate a sieve thus greatly increasing the speed at which it can process a slurry or powder.

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Details

While sieve shakers are common for processing powders and slurries. To slurry up a clay body, glaze or engobe it is customary to sieve it. But that can be time-consuming, especially for finer mesh sieves. A vibrating shaker changes that, doing in seconds what would either be very difficult or impossible by hand.

Deflocculated slurries (bodies, glazes and engobes) are very difficult to sieve because they can be thick and sticky. Again, a vibrating the sieve makes it possible. Flocculated slurries (e.g. engobes) are also much easier this way.

Related Information

Make your own vibrating sieve

Being more independent is now cool again. Actually, it is being forced upon us by necessity because of supply chain issues and skyrocketing prices of convenience glazes, bodies, engobes, etc. Independence involves using sieves. True, it is no problem for a potter or lab tech to manually coax a glaze slurry through a small 80# sieve. But real independence is about sieving in volume - clay bodies and casting slips. About making your own porcelains and sieving out agglomerates. The ultimate in independence: Sieving particulates from your own native clay slurries. And doing it at 100, 140 and even 200 mesh. That requires a vibrating sieve. This one cost us less than $100 to make. Of course, a Tyler sieve (or similar) is needed, these can be purchased on Ebay or Amazon. And a vibration motor, some metal and hardware and a friend with metal fabrication tools.

A sieve shaker used on dry powder samples

These are used in structural product industries to measure PSD and are much coarser sizes than is typical in pottery, porcelain or stoneware.

This is what labs use to measure particle size

To measure particle size in a slurry or powder you need sieves. This is the most popular type used in labs. They are made from brass by a company named Tyler. The range of screen sizes for testing particle size is very wide (obvious here: the top screen has an opening of 56 mm, the bottom one 0.1 mm - the wires are almost too small to see). You can often buy these used on Ebay for a lot less than new ones, search for "tyler sieve". The finer sieves (especially 200) are fragile and more easily ripped. For potters it is good to have a 50, 100 and 150.

A KimLab sieve bought from Amazon, is it as good as a Tyler?

This cost about $40 and arrived in about a week. It appears to be well made. The first major issue is going to be the diameter, 7.75 inches (this does not match Tyler, they measure 8 inches). Another issue is that it is not as tall, creating a greater chance of spillover. The bottom flange is not as wide, that could be a problem if the sieve needs to stay firmly locked in place in a shaker.

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