** Besure to read UPDATE below.
After 10 days of the rehydrating process, I removed the red clay bags from the buckets of water. The results were different for each bag.
This rehydration process kind of sucks. It's hit or miss on how much water you need to add depending on how dry your clay is. Also, if it's really hard clay you may need to leave it submerged for a full 2 weeks or longer.
Hand-built Red Clay Mugs
by Cindy Gilliland
Results...
The 2 bags of Laguna Redstone Clay turned out very soft on the edges, but still firm in the center.
When I opened the 2 bags of Laguna Hawaiian Red Clay, all I could say was.. "What a flipping mess". One bag was way too soft and the other was very firm. I decided to combine the soft and the firm in layers and homogenize it by wire wedging and hand wedging.
This process just proved to me again why I wouldn't be making pottery if I didn't have a pug mill. My neck is screaming at me. Btw, I didn't use my pug mill because I didn't want to messy it up just to wedge 100 lbs of red clay.
I don't plan to use this rehydration process again.. ever.
Wire wedging soft and hard clay
I got lots of practice improving my spiral wedging skills. I'm still not a pro.
It would have been easier to just clean out my pug mill.
**UPDATE!!! 9/3/2016 - I got a much better tip on rehydrating hard clay. (See comment below from Marian Williams). Soak a towel. Wrap it around the clay. Put the towel wrapped clay in a plastic bag and let it rehydrate for a few days. I tried this technique and it's easy and works VERY well!!!