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Newbie - Why Wouldn't A Glaze Dry On Bisque?


skodimer

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Hello - I dipped my soon to be catastrophe of mugs into my SG-157 glaze yesterday and the glazes didn't dry. For about 30 minutes. What would contribute to this? The glaze was Laguna B-3 brown dipping in a porcelain slip. The ware was dry and bisque.

 

This is just the tip of my failure (or future success) but it's my first question.

 

Thank you!

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Was there vinegar or Epsom salts added to the glaze to keep it from settling? Too much of these things can really slow down your drying rate. On the plus side, it gives any glaze drips to heal, and they look nicer when fired, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just leave your pieces overnight before firing.

When you say you were dipping dry and bisque ware, are you glazing some of your green pieces that haven't been bisqued yet?

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It all depends on your pot, your glaze, and the weather. If the pot is very thin, it will become saturated during glazing and take forever to dry. If you have a glaze with high clay or feldspar content, or high iron oxide content, it will take longer to dry because those glazes will take on more water in order to get them to the proper viscosity for application. If your pot is bisque fired too hot, it will be less porous and will take longer to absorb the water. On humid, rainy days it can take hours for certain glazes of mine to dry enough to be able to handle them.

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I also want to add that if you immersed your pots in water to rinse them or even just washed them with a very wet sponge that makes the glaze take forever to dry. It can also affect the way it looks when fired (I learned as a normally beautifully behaved glaze pinholed on me for the very first time). 

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Hello - I dipped my soon to be catastrophe of mugs into my SG-157 glaze yesterday and the glazes didn't dry. For about 30 minutes. What would contribute to this? The glaze was Laguna B-3 brown dipping in a porcelain slip. The ware was dry and bisque.

 

This is just the tip of my failure (or future success) but it's my first question.

 

Thank you!

 

You will have many, many questions but you have found an amazing place to ask them. And we have all, every single one of us, been beginners (I'm still a beginner); we all have made mistakes; and we all still make mistakes. Really dumb mistakes too. So don't ever feel embarrassed. :) 

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Had that happen to a couple of 'celadon' type test tiles yesterday, the glaze seemed pretty fluid but when I dipped for 3 seconds it came out a pudding like consistency and didn't dry after an hour or so. Pitched those in the trash, added some water to the glaze and dipped new tiles, dried much faster but may dilute the color of a bit.

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I have learned (the hard way) that glazing the inside of a vessel, letting it dry and then glazing the outside will result in shorter drying time. If you dip the entire piece in the glaze at once, it can take hours to dry. Also, thicker pieces will dry faster than thinner pieces.

 

It really shouldn't take that long to dry. I have a friend who dips all her glazes and I've watched her working many times. She will spend about fifteen minutes dipping a batch of pots and by the time she is done with the last the first are dry and ready to be handled and have the feet wiped. I think there's another factor at work. 

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I have learned (the hard way) that glazing the inside of a vessel, letting it dry and then glazing the outside will result in shorter drying time. If you dip the entire piece in the glaze at once, it can take hours to dry. Also, thicker pieces will dry faster than thinner pieces.

 

It really shouldn't take that long to dry. I have a friend who dips all her glazes and I've watched her working many times. She will spend about fifteen minutes dipping a batch of pots and by the time she is done with the last the first are dry and ready to be handled and have the feet wiped. I think there's another factor at work. 

 

 

Yeah, there are probably lots of things that account for faster and slower drying times. I haven't kept track of certain clays or glazes, but the one thing this is consistent is that thicker pieces dry almost immediately, thinner take longer.

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