Calcium Bentonite: The Healing Clay

These bentonite clay products are the basic "do it yourself" materials for a lot of uses. Montana Bentonite harvests our raw clay selectively using both hand and mechanical tools. Calcium bentonite is hygrophyllic or hydrophyllic, meaning it pulls moisture right out of the air and maintains a moisture content relative to the atmosphere. Montana is a dry environment for the most part, but there are times when we cannot extract fresh material. Sometimes during the Winter, though, we still can. It all depends on the weather: temperature and humidity.

Most of the fresh harvested clay goes to a main stockpile where it is left to dry and for some of the lumps to fall apart. We then pull from the stockpile as needed for production.  Production consists of pulverizing the dried clay, repeatedly as need be, then a vacuum system pulls the powder off to a storage container. From storage, the powder is run through a screener for final sizing and the fine clay falls down into plastic buckets for storage containers that we can handle by hand. From these buckets, then, we measure out, heat-treat as called for and package to fill orders.

Bulk Calcium Bentonite:

Montana Bentonite offers two categories of bulk clay: 1) raw material: unprocessed and unpackaged and 2) processed and packaged. The processed bentonite clay is screened at 200 mesh which is sufficient and suitable for most all common uses.

PLEASE NOTE:  We do not not heat-condition our Bulk Clay Products. It is the Personal Clay Products that are heat sterilized.

Raw Bentonite Clay

Used mostly for construction purposes such as pond lining, ditch lining and waterproofing, we also offer our raw material clay for those who wish to do their own processing, or have custom processing run for them. Items CC 100 and CC 1000 are for orders of 100 pound and 1000 pound quantities. The "CC" is meant to indicate "construction clay". These items will usually require truck shipping if not picked up at the mine site, and so USPS/UPS shipping is not included.

Processed Bentonite

The above items Powdered 01, 02 and 03 are 1#, 3# and 5# bag-in-box processed to 200 mesh. Options are given for multiple boxes with corresponding price decreases.

For larger quantities, Items Bulk Clay 10 and Bulk Clay 100 are for quantity increments of 10 pound and 100 pounds, respectively.

Construction Clay

We continue to have many inquiries for use of this calcium bentonite for pond lining, ditch lining, foundation waterproofing and other such construction works. I really need to do a better job of explaining all about how and the benefits of construction with this bentonite clay and so I'm going to get started. At some time I will develop this category off into it's own store and information section.

There are many benefits to using calcium bentonite for construction beginning with the completely customizable nature of working with bentonite clay, through the mechanical properties and beneficial chemical properties of c.bentonite to the maintenance and repairability to cope with unforeseen occurances.

Please review the listings of both the XR(F) and Trace Minerals lab test reports. It is important to understand how c.bentonite performs in benefiting all of the aspects involved in construction with clay. Whether the clay is to hold water in or to hold water out, it is to be expected to come into contact in some way with the water and that the water will move in some way(s). This fluid interface is the defining, even critical, moment when the clay does its' work. Mechanically, it slows and stops the water from going in a direction as it allow water to pass in another. Ponds have wind and current actions and need to have some pathway for the water to leave when the pond is full or as water is drawn from it. The interface is the mixing where the clay will pull compounds having positive electrical charge such as toxins, herbicides and insecticides to the clay particles. The electro-chemical attraction of the clay, as small and delicate as it may be, then holds those other elements to it and removes them from mobility in the water medium. In smaller fish ponds, removal of ammonias in this action becomes very significant for both purity and pH control.

Again- we'll have much more to do with pond and waterproofing construction with bentonite clay as we build the separate page. We'll pull the CC products from here to put there and continue developing our product offerings.

In the meanwhile- please do continue contacting me if I may be of assistance in both your planning for and construction work during this 2010 construction season.