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Woot! Trying It Out Finally!


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Ok so today I mixed up a few batches of glaze to test! I did the Glossy Base 1 with G200hp and the wollastonite was substituted for the silica/whiting combo.

 I also did a mix of that with Tin to test out some white while I was at it. 

I tried cranberry red (in brit's book) and one with the base only with a red mason stain. (I read somewhere that it was possible to look great)

I am trying a basic shiny clear glaze (gersley borate. silica, epk) 

And finally The dark blue N501. 

 

So excited this week I will fire my first test tiles ever! <3 I will post my results 

I have a crappy kitchen digital scale and doing only 100 gram batches It is tricky because it doesn't do half grams so I have to play with it a bit. Time to invest in a decent scale. 

 

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Have fun with it Rebekah - you will get new and interesting results...and hopefully the colors you are looking for.

 

Regarding a scale - you can buy an expensive gram scale, but you can also get inexpensive scales from Amazon that do grams and offer the 'tare' .  This is the link to the scale that I have been using for a couple years, with success,

 

http://smile.amazon.com/Ozeri-Digital-Multifunction-Kitchen-Elegant/dp/B004164SRA/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1430097721&sr=8-6&keywords=gram+scale

Ozeri Pronto Digital Multifunction Kitchen and Food Scale, Elegant Black   $12.47 Prime

 Granted it does not do 'tenths of a gram' buy I round the value up or down and have noticed no ill effects.

 

Let us know how the firing goes!

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You can get cheap digital scales on eBay approx $10 that measure accurately to hundredths of a gram. I have a couple of these and they work great. I can confirm accuracy because I have also purchased calibration weights and I regularly test them.

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Awesome! I'm in the same boat as you so I purchased a new scale that does a bit better job weighing to 0.xx oz. Found it on amazon for 18 bucks. Not too expensive. I started with a simple round number glaze as well, a celedon and gradually turned that into a temmoku with increments of red iron oxide. Super fun to see something you created from scratch right?!!

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Here are my first tiles! 

 

From the left 

1- Cranberry Red. For some reason it did not turn red at all. And it is a matte glaze.  It called for tin, chrome, and bentonite. 

2- Cranberry red base with an encapsulated red mason stain. I did 8% stain. I am thinking of trying it again with more.  I would like a more solid red. 

 

3- Shiny Clear - Gb/ silica/ alumina. - I like it. 

4- Shiny clear with 1.5 Copper - I thought it was cool looking

 

5- Glossy Base 1- (mid range book) Its a nice clear- not as shiny as #3. It seems to fit the clay body that I am using pretty well though.  (mid range porcelain from ART clay, trying to use it up so I can use my laguna frost) 

6- Glossy Base 1 with 10% tin for white. - Not as white as I would have liked. I should try it on my brown stoneware to see just how white it is. 

 

7- N501 with 2.5 Cobalt.  This can replace the amaco blue celadon glaze that I currently use.  

 

Now I wait for my better scale (I wonder if that is what went wrong with the cranberry red... it was jumping strange at the end of my measuring) I can't wait to test more! 

post-19612-0-76633800-1430410655_thumb.jpg

post-19612-0-76633800-1430410655_thumb.jpg

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For reds, the stain is quite refractory.[doesn't melt]. You could add 15% whiting. So if you are mixing 100 gram tests, that would be 15 grams of whiting.

#7 That cobalt looks really nasty. Try the cobalt at 0.5% That's one half a percent.

TJR.

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For reds, the stain is quite refractory.[doesn't melt]. You could add 15% whiting. So if you are mixing 100 gram tests, that would be 15 grams of whiting.

#7 That cobalt looks really nasty. Try the cobalt at 0.5% That's one half a percent.

TJR.

 

Agreed. You should rarely need more than 0.5-1.0% cobalt.

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The cranberry red might be matt if your scale wasn't very accurate. I'm guessing it was supposed to only have a titch of chrome in it, (like under 0 point 3) so if your scale doesn't measure less than 1 gram that would be tricky. Chrome is super refractory so if you over supplied it that would cause a matt glaze, plus that lovely sludge green.

 

When you are doing your tests for colourant amounts try mixing the base with the least amount of colourant you think you will need. So for example with the red stain, mix base plus 5% then add 1% more stain then dip another test tile, next add another 1% and so on. Not totally accurate since you are removing a bit of glaze with every test tile but it gets you in the ballpark. This way you have mixed one base but can get multiple tests from it.

 

Your glossy base 1 plus 10 tin really should of been white. 10% tin is a lot, especially since you put it on a white clay. Any reason you are using tin and not zircopax? Tin is way more expensive.

 

I see the same kinda intense blue on the pots in the background. Are you going for this strong a blue? +1 for what TJR and Neil said about cutting back on the cobalt. If you want to tone down the harshness of the blue you can add a couple percent of RIO.

 

Well done! :)

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I liked the copper green the best.

 

Once you start testing glazes, it can get to be an obsession.  Don't overlook the possibility of putting one glaze over another-- some of my favorite effects come from this sort of combination.  Even with half-a-dozen glazes and a few slips, the potential combinations are surprisingly numerous, and the great thing about it is that you can make a lot of this sort of tests without mixing up new glazes.

 

I'd agree that you have a lot of cobalt in the blue glaze.  But if you layer or spray it lightly over another... say, that copper green or one of the whites... you might take the curse off it.

 

There is something of a bias among potters against really really blue glazes, maybe partly because it's such an easy effect to get, so a lot of beginners do it.  But blue is a nice color, all the same.  I once showed up at a communal wood firing with a box of blue-glazed pots under my arm, and when I told folks about it, they looked at me with pitying eyes.

 

But the pots came out great, and I still use some of them in our own kitchen.

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I do like the look of classic cobalt blue (like the polish salt and pepper shakers in the background) - I wanted to make the noxcema blue in the mid fire book but I didn't have one of the ingredients.  This was the closest recipe. I will try less blue and see if I can still get a good classic cobalt.  The recipe called for 3%- so I was trying to cut it back... haha 

I have some rutile so I am thinking of trying that in some. I need to order some strontium too... I like the way it plays on surface too.  

Lots of good advice in this thread! I feel like I just received julia childs french cooking and a kitchen full of ingredients. ;) 

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I love to test glazes. I test them all the time. I work with cobalt a lot in my blue over glaze. You can try diluting it with iron, or manganese.

I don't know if you said oxidation or reduction. That would affect your results.And our advice.

TJR.

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Don't sweat the scale issue. There are plenty of workarounds -- for example, measure an amount large enough to let you 'trust' the scale -- like 8 grams. Yes, it may be 7 1/2 or 8 1/2, but that's not important. Lay it out flat on a smooth tile, in a sort of line, like the druggies do on TV shows. Cut it in half, then cut the half in half. Move that (2 gm. amount) away from the rest, form a nice line again, and repeat the process. You've now got measured out 4 gms, 2 gms, 1 gm, and 2 half grams. There's another, more complex process to get more variants, but this is simple and sufficiently intuitive to do it well the first time. My guess about your samples is with less copper you'll get a glossier effect. I rarely use more than 1% copper carbonate in a glaze, and I do lots of greens. Too much copper and your glaze will leach; I'd also cut back on the cobalt, as it is a powerful flux and glazes will often run with too much cobalt.

 

The cranberry test looks to me like too much chrome. Underfiring usually gives me a sort of gray-white result. I find chrome oxide at about 0.15% (fifteen hundredths of one percent) will usually turn a tin white quite pink. As always, it's just a guess.

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these are cone 6 oxidation, right?   i would like the recipe for cranberry if it is.  they are a great beginning.  don't forget to keep notes and make sure you can match the samples to written notes.

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oldlady - Do you want the recipe for the one with the red stain or the one that turned out greenish?  It is cone 5 with 10 minute hold.  (so 5 1/2) ;)  

 

Neph Sy - 18

Silica - 30

Whiting - 20

Kaolin - 18

Frit 3134- 14

 

I used 8 % encapsulated red mason stain.  but the one that turned greenish called for 

3.8 Tin

.2 Crome

2  bentonite 

 

It's on page 99 of the mid range book.  and a tile on page 100 

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Here's another version of the Cranberry, we call it Raspberry:

Frit 3134      18.98

Neph Sye     18.59

Whiting         19.11

EPK              11.49

Flint               31.83

 

Chrome Ox   0.2

Tin Oxide      7.5

 

It likes to be on thick to get good color, and a solid cone 6 or even a little hotter.

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I had no clue what the heck Woot meant....so for anyone else trying to catch up with the lingo of the day, the Urban Dictionary informs me that " Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, "w00t". 

"w00t" was originally an trunicated expression common among players of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for "Wow, loot!" Thus the term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement.

 

Now you know (if you didn't.) LOL (At least I know what that means.)

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I had no clue what the heck Woot meant....so for anyone else trying to catch up with the lingo of the day, the Urban Dictionary informs me that " Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, "w00t". 

"w00t" was originally an trunicated expression common among players of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for "Wow, loot!" Thus the term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement.

 

Now you know (if you didn't.) LOL (At least I know what that means.)

woot

 

woÍžot/
exclamation
informal
 
  1. (especially in electronic communication) used to express elation, enthusiasm, or triumph.
    "I definitely get Fridays off, woot!"
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