Working Big: Sculpting Industrial Clay Pipe In June of 2004 I had a wonderful opportunity to work at the Mission Clay pipe factory in Pittsburg, Kansas. I spent 12 days working inside the plant, carving 12 terracotta sewer pipes, with expert help from the factory workers. These pipes are termed "the largest pipe in the world". All the pipes have now been fired, without any structural problems, bringing the project to successful completion.
	Work began on Monday, June 14th. It was amazing to see the team at work extruding ("pressing") the huge pipes, which actually steam from the intense pressures of the hydraulic machinery. Two 8-ft pipes and two 12-ft pipes were extruded and delivered by forklift to the designated studio in dryer A1. (Fig.1) A square flue-type pipe, 4 x 4 feet, had been saved in shrink-wrap from the previous week. Two days later, I got another two twelve-foot and two ten-foot pipes before production switched to smaller pipes. Because of production schedules, the work period was tightly scheduled from June 14 - 26th. more? ...read the complete story