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Getting The Perfect Gloss From Terra Sig.


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This is the full citation, google it, the full article is a PDF.  If you can't open it for any reason I'll send it to you. Enjoy.

 

 Y. MANIATIS, E. ALOUPI ,  A. D. STALIOS. NEW EVIDENCE FOR THE NATURE OF THE ATTIC BLACK GLOSS. Archaeometry.Volume 35, Issue 1, pages 23–34, February 1993

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Thanks for the article, Angie. I find the presence of an amorphous glassy layer interesting. Their discussion of weathering of the glassy layer is also of interest. The chemical composition of the body and glaze was fascinating--pointing to an ash as a deflocculant with low soluble phosphorus. I wonder how they made certain of the concentration of the alkali in the water for deflocculation.

 

At any rate, I very much enjoyed the article. Thank you.I think we can say for certain that modern terra sigillata isn't Greek gloss.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Was re-reading Vince Pitelka's terra sig article this morning. Near the end of the article he speaks about the glassy surface achieved by the ancient Greeks with no burnishing. 

 

This is the first paragraph, he goes on for several more expanding on this theory.

 

"Is it Possible to Make a Terra Sig that will Develop a Gloss with No Polishing?
I believe that my reference to "super refined terra sig" is appropriate in the context of other contemporary studio terra sig processes, but it recently came to my attention that the glassy surfaces on classic ancient Greek red-figure and black-figure wares were achieved with little or no polishing, and thus the terra sig must have been refined to a far greater degree. Recently I was contacted by a man conducting experiments to create such a sig. His process started out like mine, but after concentrating the liquid back to a specific gravity of 1.20, he repeated the whole process again, and again, and again, I believe about ten times. This process is ripe for experimentation. On the second and subsequent siphonings, you wouldn't encounter any distinct layer of identifiable sediments, and would have to simply sacrifice some arbitrary amount at the bottom of the settled mixture each time - again, an area for experimentation. The beauty of this process is that on the way to re-concentrating the suspension to a specific gravity of 1.20 after each siphoning, you could pause at 1.15 and try out a bit of sig on a piece to check the degree of spontaneous gloss.
"

 

Rest of the article is here: http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/professional/terra_sig.htm

(bottom of the article is the Greek subject)

 

 

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Just wondering if that many refinements with such small particle size could also concentrate either natural salts or alkali in the slip water, forming elementary glaze? 

Very interesting line of development, like a good mystery novel.

Wyndham

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  • 1 month later...

Tyler, 

His name is Matson. He retired from Penn State University.  He has written quite a lot and his followers continue to do research and publish. Anthropologist have some great points but some also lack ceramic hands on experience and sometimes miss the reality of working with clay.

 

I BTW did not feel like you were stepping on toes. Sintering was the kernel I was getting at. Post firing terra sig is not an historical process as far as I know. Just saying it is interesting to see the results.

 

Marcia

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