Expand Your Ceramic Glaze Palette

[Chilly]

A couple of days ago I was browsing through the Glaze Chemistry area and came across this topic:  http://ceramicartsdaily.org/ceramic-glaze-recipes/glaze-chemistry-ceramic-glaze-recipes-2/expand-your-ceramic-glaze-palette-part-1/.

 

Then yesterday, in glorious sunshine I had a bit of a tidy up in the glassio.  Found these sample tiles from 2008 that I'd dumped on a shelf, annoyed that they'd all cracked, but hadn't really examined the results.

 

The top plaque is the glazes "out of the bottle", the middle plaque is the same glaze mixed 50:50 with Satin white - which is the glaze in the middle row, centre-left; and the third plaque is the same glazes mixed 50:50 with clear glaze.  They are all Potterycraft (commercial) glazes. It's amazing how different they are when mixed with something else, and how much nicer the oatmeal - bottom row, centre - has become.

 

I made them as samples, but also to attach to the garage wall to cover up the bolt holes for the extruder.  Because they cracked in firing, I never got round to putting them on the wall.

 

I'm planning to make another set with my current glazes.  The Oatmeal is a horrible glaze on it's own, dry and doesn't level.  I've been wondering what to do with it, so mixed it up with some runny glazes and the test tiles are currently "in the kiln". 

 

An interesting experiment, but by the time I've finished, I won't have any of the glazes left to use on real pots!!

 

Sometimes the journey is more interesting than the destination.

[Babs]

Nice, did you work out why they cracked?

[Chilly]

Lots of ideas why they cracked, but no definate answer~:

 

Clay prep; too much glaze in each/some compartments; clay/glaze fit; fired too long, my kiln struggled to reach temp back then, so firing took a long time;........

 

Going to have another go with current clay and glazes, will spend much more time preparing clay, and be more precise with volume of glaze in each compartment.