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Potter's Choice Cone Palladium Pc-4 5-6 Glaze


fruch

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I recently bought Potter's Choice Cone Palladium PC-4 cone 5-6 Glaze because I wanted a silver glaze but did not want to mix my own. I have done two different test fires and both came out dull. On the second firing the edges were shinny but nothing else. My students are wanting to use this on the outside of bowls and vase  I am firing at a cone 6 like the bottle say. I am firing on a cone 04 bisque and they bottle said this was alright.  Should I be putting a different type of glaze on first then the Palladium. Again, I do not want to have to mix my own. Any insight would be great. Thanks.

 

 

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Here is a post from an AMACO engineer on this subject.

and here is the thread it is from....Anyone Use Amaco Potters Choice Saturation Metallic Or Gold?

 

Palladium and Saturation Gold Users,



My name is Steve Lampron and I am the ceramic engineer here at AMACO. I want to give some simple tips about firing the Palladium and Saturation Gold glazes.

Palladium: This is what I call a float glaze. This means that in order to get the shiny silver look you need to actually allow the supersaturated metallic particles to float to the surface and form the skin. There is no trick to this other than to make sure you put a good thick layer of glaze on the piece. This is true of many glazes (commercial and made at home) which need a good thickness of glaze in order to make the surface. If you do not put enough glaze on, you will not have enough excess material to float and the glaze will look totally wrong. In the case of Palladium, it will be a fairly ugly green color. We fired this glaze on all of our clay bodies at both cone 5 and cone 6 with great results. I have a caution; this glaze can be very fluid and run so make efforts to allow for this. When you first try glazes you need to run test tiles (pieces) that are fired vrtically where you vary the thickness from what you think is too thin to what you think is too thick. This will show you where to go to get the look you want, it will also show you what it looks like when it is wrong. You will then know what went wrong when you get a pot that looks wrong. This glaze will be fine at cone 5 or 6 and requires no soak (it will make it run more). A medium / 8 hour firing is good. Cool normally. I see that a few people have gotten some blisters on pots that are fully glazed. This has happened on some clay bodies I found out after releasing it. It never seems to happen on poecelain bodies and these will also give the best surface. Please try your pots again on porcelain.

Saturation Gold: This is also a float glaze so thickness is important as well. The glaze doesn't turn out a bright shiny gold like gold lusters or the old leaded cone 05 golds. It turns out a dark kind of wrinkled bronze gold. It is not an easy glaze to get to look smooth and perfect. The suggestion that applying it over another glossy mid-range glaze is something that I find also helps the surface. The plain fact of the matter is that this type of glaze is difficult to use and requires alot of trial work. The kiln Gods probably didn't want this type of glaze to be made. It can be beautiful when perfected but it is not as simple to perfect as a pretty little matte white glaze.


I can't stress enough how important it is for all potters (especially new ones) to test glazes well before making pots. I know the desire to just make a pot but this method will only lead to disappointment and bad pots. Let me know if this helps or if I can address any other concerns you have.

Steve..........

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I get a great chrome color out of it. Just pulled out a two handled vessel out of the kiln today where i glazed the handles with pallidium and they turned out as expected...silver chrome. I did three even coats, medium speed to cone 6 on standard clay 259.

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PC-4  clean bisque ware I use a sponge - shaking the bottle may not be enough to get a good mix, try to use a drill with mixer on it-

the floating glazes gave us a little trouble too...

here is how we apply PC glazes and get good results-

1 load a fan brush and start at top of pot working left to right - 1 stroke of each side of fan brush then, run brush through both strokes to even out a little- do entire pot then let dry..

2-Now start at top of pot and work downward so it is going to be thinner at the bottom, this will help with running... do entire pot let dry then repeat step 1 for coat 3..

 

Ancient Jasper, we cant get it to look like it should by itself but wow its awesome with other glazes.. looks great over C Snow

 

what other PC colors do you have? once you get used to palladium you can make some mind blowing color schemes-

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Don't give up! I'm on my 2nd jug. I've been brushing on 3 good coats to a cone 04 bisque of trinity cone 6 stoneware. Been slow firing to both cone 5 with a 10 minute hold and a slow fire cone 6 with no hold. Good luck, I hope the glaze cooperates ;-)

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I've had good luck using this on tiles fired flat. Shiny silver with black edges. I brushed on 5 coats. When I fired vertically it pulled. It was a dark grayish black gloss. Beautiful but not the silver that I got by firing flat.

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I wonder if it is an issue, with fumes from other glazes? I've had some glazes, that were supposed to be bright colors, like orange and red, but would turn white, when around other glazes. So if I didn't have a full shelf of said glazes, there would be issues. ...I didn't order those glazes anymore.

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It looks really cool when you put the palladium over other glazes. I love the effect.  But, on it's own, it's not turning out like it should.

 

This one is palladium over textured amber brown

IMGP2091_zpsme5kgiet.jpg

 

This is palladium over blue rutile

IMGP2092_zpshiaipi7g.jpg

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While it doesn't look like the ads, I've be been happy with the results. I'm using a manual kiln to c 5 with a 30 min soak then a natural cool (when outside temps are over 50° since the kiln is in the garage). Hope this helps.

post-1780-0-35307300-1426034925_thumb.jpg

post-1780-0-35307300-1426034925_thumb.jpg

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I got the silver color but also got pinholes, which even when I tried refiring a test piece to see if they would smooth out did not. I use it on little loafers 04bisque, 6 glaze no special holds. I haven't messed with it in awhile I am wondering if I should pull it out again and try on a horizontal surface rather than vertical.

 

It's very pretty just wish I knew how to get rid of the pinholing issue.

 

Terry

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I got the silver color but also got pinholes, which even when I tried refiring a test piece to see if they would smooth out did not. I use it on little loafers 04bisque, 6 glaze no special holds. I haven't messed with it in awhile I am wondering if I should pull it out again and try on a horizontal surface rather than vertical.

 

It's very pretty just wish I knew how to get rid of the pinholing issue.

 

Terry

Do a 30 to 60 minute hold on the cooling cycle at around 1950 ..that's what I been hearing works good...

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  • 5 years later...
4 hours ago, Precious said:

This is a great thread! Just got palladium to try out, but wondering if it would be a problem firing it on 05 bisque ware? Just seeing that it's preferred at 04.

People recommend 04 because it is a well known pinholer.  I think I've read that a drop and soak is preferred to clear the bubbles.  Manganese dioxide is the main colorant and it is very gassy when it decomposes.

 

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