I've been playing with clay recipes lately. I've been wanting to try not premixing bentonite additions with water because I think I could get more even mixing of everything if I could dry mix everything first.

What happens if you dry mix the bentonite without hydrating the bentonite first?

I've been playing with making very small 1kg clay blend samples in an inflated plastic bag. It's a goofy procedure, but it seems to be a way to achieve a good dry mix shaking things up to dry mix things and then I spray water into the bag while shaking it with a pesticide sprayer that you pre pump with air to drive the water.

I'm basically messing around with a means to make small experimental clay samples and it would be handy to try not adding the bentonite as a slurry.

Normally I'd just try it out and see what happens, but I am playing with some costly additives. It would be handy to see if anyone has experience dry mixing bentonite/veegum to improve plasticity in a clay without hydrating it first.