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What Is The Most Interesting Glaze Ingredient To You?


synj00

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Out of the hundreds of ingredients that can make up a glaze what is the most interesting to YOU? It could be one that just gives interesting results when firing methods change or something that gives a good feel or texture to a glaze. I found a recent article by Matt Fiske talking about Manganese Dioxide which is very interesting in giving the iridescent shine and interesting colors to a glaze.

 

Sebastian

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I'm with Tyler, iron!!

A question, I live near a plateau whhose surface is made up of a large quantity of laterite rubble.

If I pugmilled some smaller pieces in to my clay, would it give a bleed through effect at C5/6 temps.

And I loove Gerstley Borate just because I do, unpredictable or not!

Have a Supply of the old stuff so maybe that is why this affair keeps going..

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What the woodfired kiln provides...... From thick milk chocolate to,flashing, to bidoro, to green pine ash deposits, to pastels. Ok it s not technically a glaze. Ok maybe not what you looking for

 

alberta slip, and gerstly borate are my latest muses.

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I like cobalt carbonate. Also copper carbonate. I wanted to name my twin sons cobalt and copper, but my wife said "no".

I like cobalt because you know what you are getting. I like copper because you don't know what you are getting.

TJR.

I use them for on-glaze brush decorating.

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Not tons of experience here but that said currently I am in love with rutile, blue rutile to be exact it's a wonderful thing and so far plays well with other glazes layered and side by side. I also agree that the oxides are really great especially red iron oxide alone or in glazes.

 

Terry

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I love alkaline glazes for their colours, but crazing is unacceptable so I like the lithium minerals for sources of lithium oxide that aren't soluble. Lithium oxide has a negative coefficient of thermal expansion which theoretically offsets the high expansion of the other alkalis - sodium and potassium. I have a lovely glaze at cone 9 that has 20% petalite in it that does not craze.  Unfortunately, now that lithium can be extracted so cheaply from brine in South America, it isn't financially viable to smash up rocks anymore, so petalite is no longer available. I have just bought the last 7 kilos of lepidolite in Australia. Lithium carbonate would be great if it wasn't for its solubility. 

The world's biggest spodumene mine is in my state, so I have 25 kilos of what they call 'spodumene concentrate' which includes 15% of silica, and that's OK. The difficulty is that it is sand, not powder. I have been told that I can calcine it to about 1150°C which changes it to Beta spodumene which is easy to grind in a mortar and pestle. I haven't done it yet, and I am not looking forward to it.

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  • 9 months later...

Re: spodumene concentrate from Greenbushes mine in Western Australia. I fired a bowl half full of the spodumene sand to about cone 7. This is a guesstimate, because although Cone 9 was down, the bottom shelf was seriously underfired. The spodumene in the bowl puffed up to twice its volume and developed deep cracks in its surface. The pile which had been sand was now flour, no grinding required.

I have read in a couple of books that lithium glass does not have a negative co-efficient of thermal expansion. Only the crystalline forms do. But the same books say that up to about .09 of mole, lithium oxide does help cure crazing. More has the opposite effect.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have some dug dark brown clay that is locally dug, I have done some tests, but ultimately decided to made slip from it and I use it straight out of the ground.  I make a thin slurry and run it through an 80 mesh sieve and there you go.  A wonderful slip iron rich and very local.  I do nothing, but add water.

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I have some dug dark brown clay that is locally dug, I have done some tests, but ultimately decided to made slip from it and I use it straight out of the ground.  I make a thin slurry and run it through an 80 mesh sieve and there you go.  A wonderful slip iron rich and very local.  I do nothing, but add water.

In thinking about this question I imediately thought iron but I want to wholeheartedly agree with your post. I overlooked the simplest answer. The answer is lterally under my nose.

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I like whiting because it is cool to melt down million year old life into glazes.

Dried Sea bed. Really cool stuff, a lot of calcium in it as well. that's why so many rock quarries have blue water in them. I think its one of the coolest mined products in a glaze as well... we have a fossil bed about 8 miles from the house, really cool critters in it...

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