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Since you are not too far away, here are a couple options. About 10 years ago I convinced Alsey (a hard brick manufacturer in Illinois) to sell me three pallets of "seconds" for a significantly reduced price. When they arrived they looked perfect to me and have done well in my wood kiln. These were super duty bricks. I think they were not really seconds and they were just being nice. They normally crush up any rejects as grog in future batches. https://www.alsey.com/ One other option: There was a second-hand refractory store near St. Louis that closed a few years ago. A local guy that makes an occasional pizza oven bought all the remaining inventory he could move. I bought a large load of 4x3x9" really nice bricks for only around $1/brick just a few months ago. He probably still has a large inventory, particularly of large and odd-shaped bricks. I can try to contact him if you are interested. Would be a bit of a drive though.

Hello, I am fairly new to ceramics and (hoping) to purchase a kiln for home studio use, but have no idea what is best.. so hoping for some advice on what may be best to get! I understand the voltage needs to be lower (I think what I have read is around 120 Volts for it to be compatible for normal home electricity usage?), it will have to be a fairly small size for me too although may be scope to have a larger one. I am slightly unsure of the health-and-safety pointers to look out for when thinking of having one at home too. Iv read the room needs 'proper ventilation' but not sure if having it in a separate room with a window will be enough to suffice. Does anyone know what health and safety tips I should be aware of when choosing, setting up and running? Does anyone have any knowledge on types of kilns/ makes/models that may suit home-usage a bit better? I usually fire stoneware up to cone 8. I also have a budget of £800. so not sure if this is even enough money to purchase one- so was hoping to look second hand! Thank you very much in advance- appreciate any advice!

All right. For an initial test I have mixed up about 1/3 cup white earthenware slip (cone 06-04 that I got locally and ball milled it a few days) and to this I added about a tablespoon of vinegar. Mixed it up and it bubbled a little bit (a lot of the recipes mention vinegar but not sure why exactly). By morning it had settled on top as a clear fluid and the slip had become rather unplastic, sort of more like wet sand than slip. I poured off the excess fluid. Then I added about 1/2 a teaspoon soda ash and mixed it in well. It tried to form a hard crust so I had to put it into one of my mortars and use the pestle to grind it smooth again. I have a rather large ball mill but alas, not a little one. Maybe I should make myself a smaller porcelain jar and little balls for just such things ... but I digress! The last thing I added was 1 ml of sodium silicate, mixed well then a touch more. It became very creamy and lost the hint of grittiness. I have no idea how it will preform but now I'm going to test it. Not sure if the vinegar was actually any help at all or not but the soda ash and sodium silicate made sense. I'll let you know how well it works or doesn't. I'm going to test it filling in tiny defects and a crack in a bone china horse sculpture I want to glaze. My initial reaction is it has a good feel, much like the bisque mender I had been using and loved. I can always color adjust afterwards with a little airbrushed opaque white underglaze if needed over it to blend it in before I move onto coloring the piece. Wish me luck! I'll be firing it to cone 04.

I don’t know about other lustres, but gold and white gold are made of those actual materials, and don’t tarnish. Some raku glazes that contain a lot of copper can be prone to reoxidizing over time. Usually folks will coat pieces like that with spray varnish or similar. I think it could work for Palladium.

@AndreaK, lowfire and earthenware clay has been used for centuries around the world for domestic ware. How durable this particular body is would have to be tested, I know some of the lowfire talc bodies were very weak. In North America many potters have gravitated to midrange for various reasons, one of which is it's possible to have wares that don't leak or overheat in the microwave even if the glaze has crazing or pinholes and it's fine to leave the bottom of the pots unglazed. For lowfire (including earthenware for this conversation) in order for the ware to not weep / leak when used for mugs etc it is necessary to completely glaze the pot. (I do know someone who uses terra sig on the foot but that's another topic). A huge advantage of using lowfire / earthenware is the energy savings when glaze firing and the wear and tear on the kiln elements etc. Plainsman supplies really thorough info on all their claybodies. For Snow the link to it is here, click on each of the subjects and it will expand to give the details. For Snow the absorption figures are below. You can see that it has a huge absorption of 28% when fired anywhere from cone 06 all the way to cone 2. You can also see that the absorption doesn't drop below 12% even when fired to cone 6. What this means is there is never going to be enough fluxing of the clay to vitrify it enough to be leak proof without a glaze. Functional ware made from this clay will need to be stilted when glaze fired. From the Snow page (linked above) it looks like Spectrum 700 glaze fits this body well with Snow being bisque fired to cone 04 and glaze fired to 05.

Here you go! B1 Revised.pdf

Hello! I am looking to substitute frit 3195 for 3134 in this recipe. I understand I'll need to add some Kaolin, but could someone help with how much? Brian Taylor's B1 Clear Base Wollastonite . . . 25.5g Frit 3195. . . 22.22g Flint . . . 18.89g Neph Sy . . . 16.67g Epk . . . 16.67g Thanks!

I have seen lots of hard brick over the years on many sites from potters web to craigslist and others-search a thread here thats old on ceramic sites for sales ( not facebook marketlplace) They make the bricks in the east where you live by the way.

Many commercial underglazes just don't hold up at cone 10. They start to flux out and that causes them to behave poorly when you put a glaze over them. If you're just looking for black or blue, you'd probably be better off making your own underglaze or slip. If you do want to use commercial underglazes, each color will need to be tested to see how it holds up and cone 10 and with your clear glaze.

Yes I'm looking at using plainsman clay as it's made in my city. The studio that I'm looking at uses their low fire snow clay for wheel thrown pieces and then low fire glazes. They are saying that it is good for mugs and bowls, however everything that I am reading online is kind of saying the opposite. I am really looking to make pieces that would be food safe and useable pieces. I'd be able to do everything in my home other than the firing as I don't have a kiln.

also old mills that used bricks in say kiln drying or boilers can be a source.

If there is a colour shift it's likely to be minimal if at all.

The only thing I am out of is Lithium, so I don't mix any glaze that contains Lithium. One of these days they are going to figure out how to make a battery easier and cheaper without using Lithium. Denice

Sourcing used bricks is becoming increasingly difficult since US manufacturing has been in decline for so long. You probably won't find any on FB or Craigslist, as those are listing by individuals. Instead, you want to look at industrial liquidations, commercial auctions, and even government surplus. Also contact manufacturers of refractories and see if they have factory seconds.

I have recently lost interest in firing my converted gas kiln due to a shift in style towards caustic atmospheres, i.e. wood, salt or soda. My biggest road block is sourcing bricks to build a new kiln. I’ve read up on kiln building and all that, and am quite handy when it comes to putting things together, but I can’t find any bricks! I’ve looked on FB Marketplace and Craigslist within 500 miles with no luck, and new brick costs way too much. I’m from the Akron, OH area and could use some help.

Thank you! I am out of town but will provide pictures when back. I applied 2 coats of the underglaze before carving and bisque firing. You are right, the clear glaze only bubbled and looked like orange peel and was cloudy where the black underglaze was applied, not on the bare clay areas. I will run some more test tiles and try fewer coats of underglaze and spraying clear glaze. do you have any suggestions for a clear glaze that might work better over underglaze that I can buy? I have seen several commercial glazes (laguna I think) that I was thinking of trying. Also, does it matter whether I am using porcelain or stoneware? Is this just a glaze issue or a glaze + clay issue? very much appreciate your feedback!

I have been spending a lot of time and energy replacing my Gerstley Borate glazes. The new ones are coming along, but they just don’t have the same glow and magic. I am trying to push the limits of “how much boron can I get away with?” The good news is that switching to Fabi Talc in place of Texas Talc has been seamless.

I've had to reformulate over half of our pottery glazes, both cone 6 and cone 10 to accommodate the end of Gerstley Borate, Custer, and Texas Talc. Using frits for GB, Mahavir Potash Feldspar for Custer, and dolomite/whiting for talc. Of course, all of the recipes needed changes to amounts of silica, kaolin, etc. The tough ones seem to be the recipes that were "breaking" glazes or used some sort of lithium. Those took some tweaking and testing to get to a similar match to the old glazes. Our local supplier has switched from Custer to G-200EU in their clay body mixes without any noticeable difference.

Tried looking for the answer to this one without luck (though it's likely here somewhere). Apologies in advance if repeated: An underglaze color is applied to greenware and fired to c04 (bisque). If, for any reason, it is fired again at c04, will the underglaze shift in color from the first low firing to the second? (I am aware of color changes from low to midfiring and above).

Since I've learned here that Palladium will oxidize over time (due to its manganese content), I'm wondering if there's a way to stop it or slow it down with a sealer of some kind? Not sure if it's a result of exposure to oxygen or it's something inherent in the material itself; or perhaps a result from handling? I have a (decorative) plate trimmed with Palladium and would prefer it not to tarnish and darken over time. Also wondering if that happens with metallic lustres as well?

Thanks Min for the link. Nichols did say: "After firing, I coat the underglaze surface with a food-safe oil sealant (like Salad Bowl Finish, available from home centers) and wax used by woodworkers. This seals the outside surface and makes it fairly durable, but check the instructions on the containers for care and use of these products." Doesn't seem like it would be a very durable surface for something that holds heat, like a teapot, but it seems to work for him. "Fairly" might be the key word there. I would guess the underglaze color would change/deepen with the application of anything oil-based (which may be desired). A UV blocking spray might be helpful for non-utilitarian objects, if it's permanent. I may still contact Nichols about his ongoing experiences with underglazes, since Amaco does not fully know about their products. Likely having a clear glaze coating would legally leave them off the hook for any food safety issues and possible leaching chemicals.

The clays I like from "nearby" vendor (about a hundred miles) have been reformulated. The whitish stoneware seems about the same, the red behaves a bit differently. My intent was (still is!) to look into alternatives this year; I've enough Gerstley, Custer, and Texas Talc to last a few years, however, years go quickly...

Totally take the 5 to 805, then East on the 8, 94 or surface street, like the Imperial, but toootally go Lisbon to Skyline dude, check out the Encanto Open Space. ...aye, San Diego, CA

All the time now. Gerstley is gone and Gillespie is not a perfect match. 3134 requires a complete rewrite of the recipe. Custer is gone from the market, but I still have some. G200EU might be ok, haven’t tried it yet. Still have some old Amtal talc, but some Fabi is in my future. What’s next?