NanS

Thanks Y'all! I kind of knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn't going to be so easy ( - : I've already tested A over B and B over A. Now I'm going to test A mixed with B. Appreciate the wisdom and advice!

Thanks Bill, that's a really helpful answer and just what I needed to know. Much appreciated.

Hello -- I've been experimenting with a bunch of glazes, some commercial and some I've mixed myself. I have a question about a combo that I'm interested in, which is two commercial glazes layered. (The glazes are Curry from Spectrum and Red Rooster from Opulence. I've included my test tile. My clay is a red-brown stoneware from Sheffield Pottery, Cone 6.) I like the way they look layered, and am wondering if I mix these two glazes is it a safe guess that I would get basically the same result color and texture -wise? I'd like to mix them to get more even coverage. I know the right answer to this question is to test it and see for myself, but I'm wanting to use this combo before filling the kiln a whole other time. Is there a rule of thumb with this? Thanks!

Thanks for the tip to avoid the chrome tin. I have a couple of other glossy clear glazes I've been experimenting with, I'll check them in Glazy for calcium content to see if they'd work. Also will look into the magnesium issue mentioned by Callie. Much appreciate the advice you all have provided.

Thanks Min, that's a fabulous plan, and I totally followed along with your instructions. Super helpful!

Thanks very much Min, Callie and kswan. My glaze is the Glossy Clear Base from the Mastering Cone 6 book, and is zinc free (https://glazy.org/recipes/134907). I'm firing to cone 6 in an electric kiln. Your feedback in useful, and as with most things in ceramics I can see that the answer is not straightforward! Also, thanks Min for the tip on using less than 3%, I think I'm planning to aim for 2% for my first tests. Thanks also Callie for the useful thoughts about food safety. Much appreciated!

Beginner question: Is there a rule of thumb about food safety when adding mason stains as a colorant to a clear base glaze? I'm wanting to experiment with adding a bit of mason stain to a couple of clear glazes that I've mixed up, to create a transparent celadon-like look. The percentages will be very low, 3% or less. I have been assuming that these glazes would be food safe, but it occurred to me to double check. I've been trying to research this on this forum and online but haven't come up with a definitive answer. (The colors I'm looking at are right now are Robins Egg Blue 6376, Chrome-Tin Violet 6304, Vanadium Yellow 6404, also Copper Carbonate.). I'm wondering if this is a case by case basis depending on the colorant, or if there is a rule of thumb that the resulting glazes would be considered food safe. Thanks people in advance for any light you can shed on this question.

Thanks Neil!

Hiya, I want to set a delay start of 8 hours for my bisque firing , so it will start at 5:00am if I set it at 9pm. The manual for my kiln says that 4 hours is the maximum for a delayed start, but the controller (Genesis 2.0) seems like it will let me enter any number up to 99 hours for a delay start. Can ignore the manual and set it for 8 hours? I'm fairly new at this and trying to not make any mistakes! Thank you!!

Thank you neilestrick and GEP !! This is super helpful feedback. For my next glaze glaze firing I'm going to go ahead and make a custom program based on Neil's suggestion. Thanks again!

Hi Wise People, I have a new L & L e23S-3 kiln. Previously I've only fired the test firing (Slow Bisque cone 5) and one bisque firing (Med Slow Bisque cone 05). This week I did my first glaze firing, programed to "Medium Glaze" cone 6. The test firing and the bisque previously both fired too hot -- see photos below. In all of my firings the middle shelf (out of 3 shelves total) was noticeably hotter. I set a thermocouple offset of +12 degrees F for my glaze firing. I was trying to be cautious and hoping I would end up close to Cone 6. The glaze firing was quite overfired even with the offset as you can see from the two photos of my cones below. It actually looks like the glaze firing was even more overfired than my previous two firings. The controller showed that the final temp was 2234 F, and the firing took 8 1/2 hours. I had the vent on for the whole firing. The questions I have are: 1) Is this level of over firing considered within the range of normal? 2) To what degree should I offset in my next bisque / glaze firings, and should this be a cone or thermocouple offset? 3) Could there be a problem with my kiln that needs addressing other than doing an offset? 4) Does this look like my glaze firing was almost to cone 7? Unfortunately I put the cones too close together to see how they would have bent without leaning on the cone in front. The test pots and test tiles in the glaze firing came out very funky as you can imagine. For example, I used a lot of white slip on my brown stoneware clay. Much of the white slip was burned off and almost non-visible after the firing, but especially under certain clear glazes. (I tested 4 clear glazes.) Luckily none of the glaze dripped onto my shelves, and I had no blistering. The colors of 3 commercial glazes that I tested were very off. Two tests I did by modifying two clear base glazes with 6% zircopax came out clear instead of white. Thank you very much in advance for helping me figure this out!