015 glaze options avoiding Lithium Carb

[solarnestling]

My clay of choice relegates me to a narrow low fire list of glaze possibilities. I have an 016 base option w/ 10% Lithium Carb that works fine, but i am wondering about replacements. I'm inquiring whether any of these present as a safer or more compelling base from which to continue. Is there anything to gain here by abandoning Lithium?

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015 clear base 1

 

Materials Amt Units

 

Gerstley Borate 35.000 g

Ferro Frit 3269 60.000 g

EPK 5.000 g

Bentonite 2.000 g

 

Total:100+2 added (g)

 

Unity Formula

 

CaO 0.31

MgO 0.08

K2O 0.13

Na2O 0.33

(KNaO) 0.46

ZnO 0.02

F 0.13

B2O3 0.67

Al2O3 0.26

SiO2 1.61

 

Si:Al Ratio 6.2:1

SiB:Al Ratio 8.8:1

Calculated Expansion 9.41

_________________________________________________

 

015 clear base 2

 

Materials Amt Units

Ferro Frit 3134 36.400 g

Ferro Frit 3269 55.600 g

EPK 8.000 g

Bentonite 2.000 g

 

Total:100+2 added (g)

 

Unity Formula

 

CaO 0.33

K2O 0.12

Na2O 0.41

(KNaO) 0.53

ZnO 0.02

F 0.12

B2O3 0.61

Al2O3 0.27

SiO2 2.07

 

Si:Al Ratio 7.8:1

SiB:Al Ratio 10.1:1

Calculated Expansion 9.41

____________________________

015 clear base 3

 

Materials Amt Units

Gerstley Borate 80.000 g

G200 Feldspar 20.000 g

 

Bentonite 3.000 g

 

Total:100+3 added (g)

 

Unity Formula

 

CaO 0.63

MgO 0.16

K2O 0.06

Na2O 0.14

(KNaO) 0.20

B2O3 0.70

Al2O3 0.11

SiO2 1.01

 

Si:Al Ratio 8.9:1

SiB:Al Ratio 15.1:1

Calculated Expansion 8.52

 

 

[bciskepottery]

It might be helpful to have your original base recipe and unity info as a reference point.

 

On option 3, are you using "old" G-200 or "new" G-200HP?

[neilestrick]

Any particular reason you're trying to avoid lithium?

[Guest JBaymore]

Any particular reason you're trying to avoid lithium?

 

 

I can think of a few possibilities for wanting to explore possible options.

 

This might be one factor: http://www.lagunaclay.com/msds/pdf/3rawmat/adry/mlithcarbf.pdf I am guessing it is this one from the comment about "safer".

 

And possibly extending that above information to the question of potential leaching because of high molecular equivalents of lithium from fired glazes on functional forms. And not wanting to do regular testing to check the situation for any release.

 

And maybe due to the low thermal expansion that the lithium oxide contributes to the glaze... and wanting to improve glaze fit to the body.

 

best,

 

....................john

 

 

[neilestrick]

Good points, John. I just thought if we knew what specific thing was an issue, we could come up with a focused solution.

 

While that MSDS looks nasty, the health issues from Lithium are due to 'chronic overexposure during medical treatment', as in people who are taking it daily. This is one of those ingredients that can be very safe to handle as long as you wear a mask when mixing glazes. More HERE.

[Guest JBaymore]

Good points, John. I just thought if we knew what specific thing was an issue, we could come up with a focused solution.

 

While that MSDS looks nasty, the health issues from Lithium are due to 'chronic overexposure during medical treatment', as in people who are taking it daily. This is one of those ingredients that can be very safe to handle as long as you wear a mask when mixing glazes. More HERE.

 

 

I am all for moderation in the viewpoint on this stuff, Neil. That is the ground I take in teaching this toxicology stuff. But that is the point; teaching folks something about this whole subject. NOT talking about it and giving people some accurate information is not taking a moderate ground on it. People need to have information so that they can then make informed decisions about what they do or don't do.

 

I find that too many folks who work in ceramics do not even know what an MSDS actually is. It is important to remember that if you walked into the drugstore and tried to walk out with a 50 pound bag of lithium carbonate from there you'd get arrested; controlled drug. But you can do that at the local ceramic supplier if you have the $$$. Can this stuff be used relatively safely? Yes, of course. But likely NOT if you don't KNOW what you are actually handling. (Assuming the gun is not loaded has resulted in a lot of mishaps.) Many people tend to assume that if you can easily buy these things at the local ceramic supplier, they must be totally "safe".

 

And the manufacturers sometimes play "fast and loose" with things like the ASTM non-toxic labels. Yeah... that wet clay is considered non toxic. But let it dry out and get the dust into the air... and you have a known human carcinogen and a known source of silicosis floating around. If people don't KNOW that kind of background information, things like the admonitions to clean with wet methods seem merely like some "cleanliness" advice, not important health advice. (How many threads show up in places like here and Clayart with people talking about using brooms in their studios?)

 

I'm familiar with that piece on Digitalfire, Neil. Tony knows his stuff. And Monona Rossol and I go way back; I first met her long ago and she and I kept up a bit of a constant "email freindship". We had her in to do a presentation to the students and faculty at MassArt way back in the late 70's when I was working there and was on the college's health and safety committee. Way before the H+S business was "fashionable" to bring up. Her books " Keeping Claywork Safe and Legal" (NCECA publication) and the "Artists Health and Safety Guide" are "must haves" for ceramists.

 

In working with ceramists and in traveling around doing workshops and such I can't tell you the number of times that I have seen people mixing stuff without respirators, people using the wrong filters on a respirator, people who have no idea if their respirator even FITS (and I can quickly show a lot of them that it doesn't), and so on. Glaze mixing areas with NO local pickup ventialtion. Heck ........ glaze mixing areas with NO VENTILATION at all! People eating and drinking in the glaze mixing area as they are working.

 

This list of "familiarity breeds contempt" kinds of things I often see is rather appaling. In a lot of cases the instructors in many places (community ed. and college both) are not all that familair with this aspect of working with their materials...... and it is not incorporated into the curriculum with the students.

 

It is unfortunately easy for those that "know" (like yourself) to assume that of course people are working relatively safely. Unfortunately that is too often not the case. Example: I recently had to assemble some pictures of raku post firing to show some folks examples in a permitting situation. I searched the web looking for a few good shots to show the process. It was VERY hard to find shots that did not have people in short skirts, flip flops, barefooted, wearing flamable clothes, and so on swinging around hot pieces in a sea of flames and smoke. Health and safety awareness or training in the ceramics fieeld is not as common as many might think.

 

If I were a pregnant woman and wondering about using a glaze with lithium carbonate, I'd be giving some serious consideration to the sections on that MSDS that deal with mutagenity and teratagenity. That is not overkill; it is part of informed decision making. If I were already taking lithium carbonate for some mental health issues (and I might not realize that fact becasue the drug name is not actually called lithium carbonate), I'd want to realize the potential for interaction. There are ceramists that fit both of those categories. I have no idea if the original poster would fit that description.

 

These forums are educational venues in many ways, and people are reading them that have a huge variation in their ceramic educations. (Many are "lurkers" that we don't even know about.) And also huge variations in the resources avaialable to them. And huge variations in their personal health situations that have nothing directly to do with ceramics, but that can be exacerbated by the use of raw materials in inappropriate manners. And differring total body burdens of various compounds that can be synergistic with ceramic raw materials or are the same materials.

 

So I look at whatever I post here as a "service to the field" as an educator, and I have to consider all of those types of people reading this stuff.

 

best,

 

.......................john

[neilestrick]

I agree completely. Education is extremely important, and lacking in many people. I just posted 2 weeks ago about the exact same issues with Raku safety. And I in no way meant that you were not being educational with your post. But, respectfully, I think everything you just said above was considerably more educational than a link to an MSDS with a short statement that implied that Lithium isn't safe, especially since most people have never read and MSDS. Those forms can make kittens look really deadly. Could we possibly start a permanent thread that stays at the top of the Clay and Glaze forum section that discusses safe material handling, MSDS forms, ASTM D-4236 labels, respirators and such? Maybe that people don't actually post to, but is full of information? That way we could always just link people to it whenever the issue of material safety comes up. I'd be happy to do the work on labeling requirements, as that was my job back in my tech days. I think I even coud just pull up some pages from my blog and paste them in for portions of it.