Pottery, a stove, and a palm frond dome hut – Primitive Technology

Since buying new land in Australia’s dense tropical rainforest, the man behind Primitive Technology has had access to better clay, good stone, and other abundant materials for building. In the video above, he makes small pinch pots and a larger pot from the clay found in his new creek. Of firing them in both a tipi of wooden sticks and a new mud stove, he writes:

“After waiting overnight, the pot was retrieved from the ashes and struck with a stick. The pot gave a clear ringing sound indicating it was strong and had no cracks (hollow sounds indicate the opposite)…

Notably this clay doesn’t seem to need grog or temper added to it to prevent it from cracking. I think this is due to tiny specs of mica that weren’t present in the clay from my old area. The clay seems stronger and there also seems to be much more of it everywhere. The pot boiled after a while of tending, in future I’ll probably make thinner walled pots so that they boil quicker. The stove was useful for boiling the pot. It also seems to reduce the amount of smoke in the hut and increase the life of the coals in the base so that the fire could be re stoked at a later time.”

The palm frond dome hut is also newly built, the first project on his property. See how he used 600 fronds to construct it:

His new land is also full of mosquitos and a cassowary, the horned, flightless, and often dangerous bird seen in these two fascinating videos.