Joseph Fireborn Posted June 2, 2016 Report Share Posted June 2, 2016 So there is no weighing out 0.3g of oxide 35 times? Yes I think it is done this way. I don't really mind the work though if you think about it it's still a lot easier than any alternative test method. EDIT: Actually no if I am reading right, you don't weigh it, you use the syringe to pull up the volume equal to the addition you want. So you only weigh out the cup then syringe the rest. It is still tedious but not as bad as weighing out each cup. He figures out the dry weight in each cup using a table he provides that uses your equalizing volume. So in his example he says that 480ML(single batch eq.vol = 30 gram dry(per cup). so .3 grams would be 1% of an addition, so we want say 5% iron, you would then have 1.5 grams of iron, so 30x1.5 = 52.5 grams of weight in our iron cup. then we mix and use the syringe to add 1/35th into each cup. if that makes sense. lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 7, 2016 Report Share Posted June 7, 2016 Where did you guys get your volumetric cylinders I can't find any that are not a fortune. Been surfing for hours I can't figure out if I am searching the wrong thing or what. I would like to get a 500 and 1000 ml cylinder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curt Posted June 7, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2016 I got mine from a garage sale. However, I can see tons on eBay. Search one litre measuring jug or similar. Can get two one-liter ones for about $12 USD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High Bridge Pottery Posted June 7, 2016 Report Share Posted June 7, 2016 Mine was from amazon, 500ml measuring cylinder and it was under 3 pounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 7, 2016 Report Share Posted June 7, 2016 I think have been searching the wrong term. Thanks for help. Measuring cylinder turns up much cheaper things than volumetric cylinder. Yay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim T Posted June 7, 2016 Report Share Posted June 7, 2016 If you get tall thin ones they read more accurately than low dumpy ones, as 1mm change in height is a lower change in volume - but they are also easier to knock over! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curt Posted June 8, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2016 Can't see the ones in the Amazon pic (only a picture of the Amazon dog! Lol) but just make sure they are wide enough all the way to the bottom that you can get your stick blender into them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 8, 2016 Report Share Posted June 8, 2016 I am just going to get a set of ones at a local store so I can see them, cause all the ones on here seem overpriced anyways. I just placed my orders for everything else though. 15 dollars total. woo woo. my grid mold is in the bisque right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 9, 2016 Report Share Posted June 9, 2016 Welp. I took out my bisqued mold and rolled some slabs out and rolled them over it. Took me about 5 tries before I figured out how to do it good. These are my first 2 grids drying now for the first two test I am going to run! WOO WOO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curt Posted June 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2016 Looking good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 9, 2016 Report Share Posted June 9, 2016 Yea. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to roll tiles over the mold. I should have made mine like yours and left a box around the mold. That would have been the smart thing to do. I have to be super careful not to thin my mold on the edges when I roll it. But eventually I will make another one. Getting better at rolling out slabs with a rolling pin. Thanks for all the help along the way. I will post my first grids when I finish them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curt Posted June 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2016 As a work around perhaps try something suggested earlier, that is place wooden or steel dowl rods of just the right height to give you a good thickness on either side of your mold and roll the rolling pin across those. That should stop the rolling pin dipping down at the edges and making your tile too thin there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 9, 2016 Report Share Posted June 9, 2016 As a work around perhaps try something suggested earlier, that is place wooden or steel dowl rods of just the right height to give you a good thickness on either side of your mold and roll the rolling pin across those. That should stop the rolling pin dipping down at the edges and making your tile too thin there. That is what I ended up doing for those last 2. I made a square around the mold so that I didn't roll it thin, still tricky to do it right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Woodin Posted June 9, 2016 Report Share Posted June 9, 2016 I use containers 1 quart from home depot for the 4 corners. The individual cups are used yogurt cups about 6 oz. The test tile, because I am interested in vertical tests are extruded test tiles long enough to make 5 tests per tile times 7 tiles for the 35 grid. I only use 300 gram batch for the corners. The syringe is 60 cc McKesson Syringe without needle order 102-SC60C20. Each cup has 48 Milli Litres per sample. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 Halfway through doing the first test and realize. D is in the C spot on my bucket table. Not even sure how that happen. So yay! Needless to say some unpleasant words were spoken in my garage. Just realized I can just swap all the cups to the opposites and it will work out. Man.. That could have been a disaster if I didn't realize that after I fired it then was drastically confused. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High Bridge Pottery Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 DOH, at least you spotted it so D is now bottom right? Excited to see your tile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 Yea. D is now bottom right. So I had only gotten to the second row. The first row doesn't have any C/D in it, so the 2nd row I just moved 67 and 89 so that they worked fine. 8 remained the same. i also realized i was wasting a ton of time doing each cup with each 4 glazes. after i got to cup 13 i went back and just did A in all the cups, then B in all the cups and so on. Made it much faster. Now I am waiting the hour or so for them to sit. lol. so close to screw up. I actually like the method. so far everything has went perfect. It is a lot quicker than I thought it would be, once I do this a few times I can imagine it being much faster. Maybe 2 hours or so not counting the waiting time. I am going to roll out a ton of grid tiles next week and get them setup and drying. I have 16000 grams of glaze ingredients coming in the mail for my celadon. I am pretty excited to see the grid, if there is a better version of the glaze I am using that has a smoother surface. Ideally I would like for it to be smooth glass surface. I have it pretty close but I can't get it any further with my schedule so I decided to do a currie grid to see if any of them are free of micro dimples. I hate them so much, you can't see them until you hold the pot up to your face, but them being there drives me nuts! Of course if it is better I still need to test verticle, but that will be ok. I will just mix up the grid numbers I like in a 100ML batch and test vertically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High Bridge Pottery Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 Why do you have to wait an hour for them to sit? You can do a tile in under an hour start to finish once you get into it. Hopefully you will find that smoother surface I don't see the problem with not testing on vertical tiles but that's just me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 In the book he says after you mix the 35 cups its best to let them sit and hour or so. I do that with all my test anyways. I usually dont even use a glaze until it has been sitting for over 24 hours. I find if I mix the glaze to consistency the first time it is always wrong when I open it up the next day. So what I have taken to doing is mixing it to a thick consistency. Letting it sit over night, then adding water and mixing again, then sieve. Then I let it over night again and check the next day. I do this for all my major batches. For small test batches I just mix them let them sit a few hours then dip tiles. Yea it didn't take too long imo. I don't mind working hard though. I am just going to test vertical on the few grids I like. Gotta make sure everything is exactly how I want it before I commit to it. DONE! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curt Posted June 27, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2016 Looks like the real deal! Very exciting and cant wait to see the finished tile. A couple other suggestions if you have not already done them. Not sure if you have put Currie's "striding man" in each cell, but I strongly suggest you do, it is a small step and worth the extra effort when you are doing each cell on a tile. Having this extra layer of glaze in an easily recognizable pattern the same in every cell is really helpful to verify what is melting a how much. I think he tells you how to do this in the book, but it is simply an extra syringe-layer of glaze in the shape of an upside down "y" on the tile (being careful not to obscure your little raised bits in each cell, which I can see that you have from the picture. I also added another feature to each currie cell, namely a scratch test to see how well things heal over. Again, this is invaluable to getting confirmation on what is melting and how much, and whether or not the glaze is moving enough to heal over blisters or other blemishes on the surface of the glaze. After a while I realized that it is in effect often giving me a very real indication of surface tension in the glaze, in a different way from the "striding man" test above. I put this test between the "legs" of the striding man, a simple straight mark with a needle tool down to the underlying bisqued clay. You need to do this when the glaze is still somewhat wet, not so wet that it settles back in to the mark, but not so dry that the glaze breaks into crusty chunky bits when you run the needle tool through it. You can see both tests in the tile below, along the right hand column of cells going down. Cell 5 and Cell 10 show the striding man clearly, even though they are clearly melted and somewhat "crawly". I take this to mean (among other things) this glaze will melt, but it will not smooth out and will almost certainly not move unless applied very thick. Perhaps not all that surprising since Corner B of the tile is the most refractory overall. The cells below these, namely cells 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35, all still clearly show the scratch test, although the striding man is pretty much gone. These high silica glazes have settled right down and melted convincingly which has caused the striding man to disappear. Without the scratch tests one might think these glazes melt OK. However, the scratches still clearly visible (even near the good melt area of the tile) demonstrate that while these glazes may melt, they are not healing over. This could be good or bad news, depending on what you are after. Interesting in this tile how well melted cell 14 is, and then cell 15 right next door very dry and sugary. The melt zone on this tile is more vertical than usual, which I interpret as it being relatively sensitive to the level of silica. I have many other currie tiles in my gallery. If you will look closely you will see these tests in most of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 27, 2016 Report Share Posted June 27, 2016 This is fantastic. I will add the scratch test to my next grid. It makes a lot of sense what your saying. I did apply a second layer of glaze on my grid, I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but I put a second layer in the bottom right corner of each glaze in the shape of a V matching the corner. I left the top left corner which is where my marks are one single amount. It will be interesting to see what it looks like tomorrow. I already have plans to make a better grid setup and start pumping them out. The whole method was much easier than I thought besides the almost mishap of doing everything backwards! I definitely see the benefit of this method. I am curious if it will even look like the original glaze. I put a dab of the original glaze on the top so I could quickly compare it in the same firing that this tile went into. I hope I get a surface that is beautiful glossy! with no microdimples! Thanks for all the help along the way. been great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curt Posted June 27, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2016 LOL, yep as with everything else the first time is the hardest. Methodology and consistency is key in this exercise, and also speed up the whole process. I find I am talking to myself a lot (frequently out loud) along the way to remind me what I am doing and where I am at in the process, because it is easy to get distracted. By cup 28 on corner D your mind is starting to wander!! Good idea to put the original glaze on the tile somewhere, I need to start doing this. Most of the time it somewhere on the grid, but I did discover that some of my glazes where off the grid beyond corner B!! No wonder they were struggling to melt, lol. I will be surprised if you do not find a better version of your starting glaze somewhere on your tile. I sure have. And for glossy glazes almost always lower down and too the left, ie more flux... My functional glazes are on a collision course with the limits....but that is another thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 27, 2016 Report Share Posted June 27, 2016 Oh yea. I had music going, but I was talking to my self the entire time. Saying the measurement + cup in my head every time, then checking the cup number and measurement and saying it out loud a second time before I poured it. Found several times where I would have made a mistake if I hadn't checked. Tricky Tricky this grid method. I can't wait to start testing silicon carbide reduction things next. I just have to figure out if I am going to vary the silicon carbide or just use it as an additive. Going to do some research into the copper reds to see where I should start for chemically reduced tenmoku's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High Bridge Pottery Posted June 27, 2016 Report Share Posted June 27, 2016 Still not sure I can work out why they say rest the glaze. Maybe with a full bucket if it is super bubbly or if the physical properties do change after sitting for a day. Talking to yourself is always the best, I do it while throwing too. It might be worth doing silicon carbide as an additive first to see if Si/Al ratios change anything with a set amount of carbide. Hard to know if there is any specific(ish) glaze chemistry you want in the base or how much carbide you need so you will still need a test with varying amounts. Getting into some exciting stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Fireborn Posted June 27, 2016 Report Share Posted June 27, 2016 Yea that was what I was thinking. Do it as an additive first so that I can see if the any of the other elements play a major part in what happens. Definitely exciting stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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