There are branded kinds of clay, often 'air drying' and available in different colours. These are expensive and contain modern dyes and hardeners so I avoided them.

The craft shop didnt even display their ordinary clay so I asked at the counter for "ordinary straight-out-of-the-ground clay" and they fetched out a big grey lump in a nameless plastic bag. Perfect.

http://www.fredaldous.co.uk/product_150990001.htm

basic potters clay is what you want. If in doubt or offered a choice buy the cheapest type, as that will be the one without any special additives

If you want to try making clay missiles from moulds how about using plaster of paris ?
it's pourable, sets pretty quick - not terribly dense but could be fun to play with

An easy way to make a reuseable mould would be to mould it from fimo (or similiar thermo setting plastic craft material).
It's pretty durable stuff as long as you don't make it too thin.
For a dimpled biconical mould either use an impression from a cross golf ball (you lot seem to have forgotten about these) or use a sheet of fimo to get the impressions from a golf ball and then carefully shape it to biconical before setting.

like the bicons - they look the business

Very cool David. I look forward to hearing how they work.

I am on my way now to get some clay from the craft store.

This is odd: my golf ball is 45 grams but it still feels in my hands like it weighs the same as my clay spheres or biconicals. Very odd. Spinning them at the same speed in a sling I can clearly feel the greater weight of the golf ball.

Just made 47 clay glandes, 25 biconal and 22 round. Most of them are different sizes so I can get a feel of what I like. It was about 5 lbs. of clay.

David Morningstar wrote on Jul 20^th, 2009 at 1:10pm:



See, I woulda referred to 'em as "prey" and just gone about my slinging...