bentonite clay ?
- Thread starter Jeff H
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Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
Any kind of clay should work for you. I used to dig out my own at a bend in the creek. Or you could use a piece of plastic or rubber roofing.
j-bird
Well-Known Member
if I was to get some I would call up my local well driller. They use is as a lubricant on the outside of the pipe casings for the deep aquifer wells around here. I also know bentonite clay is also used in green sand foundry processes.....they tend to get it by the semi truck and store in huge silo's but there typically is some piles on the ground that you may be able to "clean-up" for them as well. I don;t know of a retail source for it. Keep in mind it will work best if you work it into the soil and then pack the soil. It's also very fine - like talc, so wear a mask if you start slinging it around.
j-bird
Well-Known Member
My experience with it is in a sand foundry. It's awful messy stuff because it's so fine. When wet it expands to like 10 times it's size and thus how it seals. In a foundry you use it to make the sand "sticky" and then mold it and squeeze the crap out of it. Then it's nearly like rock. Dump the molten metal in and as the metal cools and heat sucks the moisture out of the clay and the sand falls off and gets reused.
I have a neighbor in the area what had to have it trucked in, mixed with the soil and the like to get his new pond to hold water. The ground here is real grainy and drains really well with very little clay of any sort. When I dug my small water hole I wasn't sure it would hold water. Still not sure it will even though it has thus far (but been a wet summer as well). That was how I knew about well drillers using it. I already had him confirm he could get me some if I needed it.
Good luck
I have a neighbor in the area what had to have it trucked in, mixed with the soil and the like to get his new pond to hold water. The ground here is real grainy and drains really well with very little clay of any sort. When I dug my small water hole I wasn't sure it would hold water. Still not sure it will even though it has thus far (but been a wet summer as well). That was how I knew about well drillers using it. I already had him confirm he could get me some if I needed it.
Good luck
j-bird
Well-Known Member
That stuff is essentially cat litter which uses clay as well.....don't see why it wouldn't work.
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