Retxy

@glazenerd @High Bridge Pottery @Min @Babs thank you all so so much for the help!!! its got 15 of talc in in it, the majority is om4. Do any of you recommend any resources (already know about digital fire) that can help with tinkering with clay body formation? I understand some of the ballet of these materials in glazes, but absolutely none of the waltz that is clay body formation. I would love to take the Katz class on this, but am p*ss poor. The recipe I'm using is from an old chappelle book, so I'm not sure about posting it here because I don't want the copyright gods to smite me... but it is a throwing body and im firing it to cone 04 and its vitreous! l I really want to mix my own clay as I live in the middle of nowhere and shipping it out here is often more expensive than the clay itself. I appreciate you all and your kind help!

Hi everyone! I have found a clay body that I like that I'm mixing myself but that is listed as a white firing body but is actually coming up rather creamy in color. I have learned that the om4 in the recipe can make it fire that way (thanks to digital fire) but to precipitate out the impurities barium carbonate is suggested and im not a fan. Any thoughts on how I can get it to burn pure white? I've got some glazes that are dulled by the creamy color but look so good on whiter bodies and I'm really enjoying the other properties of the body. Mason stains are too expensive so white body stain is not an option. I also considered a different ball clay, but Tennessee 10 for example was too refractory and I think I will lose the vitrificationof the body with a more refractory ball clay. Is there another ball clay that could work? Recipe is om4, neph sye, talc, and 3269. Thanks in advance, Ret

Thank you Mark C!!

It's a low fire vitreous cone 06 clay from a book I read!! Thank you both!!!!

Oh my. I forgot to add grog to my clay to make it suitable for raku. Can someone tell me if there is any chance of success firing small pieces ( think 4 inch bonsai pot sized) of work that has no grog in it? Thanks!!

I'm a newbie here with glaze formulation constantly on my mind. I noticed some shivering of your glaze where the base rises into the sides of your platter... Are you sure this is not from a glaze fit issue? Does it happen with all your Glazes or just this one? I'm SO sorry, I know your pain.

Thank you so much Callie! One of my nephews is into bonsai, so that's easy but will still require some waterproofing. Made of Australia had a liquid quartz which they claim will make raku waterproof but I can't justify the cost and also can't really see the difference between their liquid silica and plain ole waterglass/ sodium silicate. I'm going to try some of that and see. Thanks for the awesome ideas!!

Aha!! Testing...

Thank you all so much! Im trying to give my afolescent nephews a raku fire show and reallly want them to have something safe they can use daily from the experience like a mug. I see some horsehair raku makers on etsy with lined vessels and thoight maybe its stoneware which is raku'd first then fired to cone with liner after but the description says they are raku'd last. Ugh my poor brains!! Thanks again!!

Thank you so much Mark in theory if one had a thermocouple and the will could liner glaze be used? I have come across some raccoon glazes that go all the way up to 1950 in order to properly work and I think it would be interesting to at least try a liner. maybe to answer my own question this is a test and see if it works situation!!!

Hi smart ceramic friends, Can I get some input as to why liner glazes that are low fire are not used inside Raku pottery? Or is it that they are and I just am behind the ball. I would be interested in making pieces with liner glaze inside in the hopes of potentially keeping the bad stuff on the outside and a good stuff on the inside. Is this a possibility or am I missing something? Thank you so much in advance D

I had three walls in my caldera, which I also boight used, arrive broken as well. I found a lovely guy on youtube who did the following: I didn't need to watch those whole series, but this part was nice and it saved me 350 bucks (shipping). I bought kiln bricks and for mortar the lovely Casey Clark from Great Basin Pottery confirmed a recipe from his predecessor of 50/50 silica/kaolin with a splash of deflocullant such as sodium silicate (I had and therefore used darvan) with enough water to form a paste. Lemme tell you that jazz worked like a charm. I spent 50 bucks on bricks and even though I had to replace one wall entirely and used other pieces to patch the others, I still had three bricks left over. Super stoked. You might want to test the elements individually to make sure everything is electricallly working, and that will help guide you in decision on what to do next. But keep in mind replacing elements is just part of the cost of having a kiln, and you were going to have to anyway, eventually. I spun my own using kanthal wire and it was a PITA but saved me another $300, which made it worth it. Tangent, but i say this to give you hope. So much of this can be done DIY if you are willing to sweat a little. Keep us posted!

@PeterH Hi Peter! Yes I had seen those, especially the article using fusion frit, which for some reason I can't get a hold of anywhere that it doesn't cost a million dollars to ship it. Sigh, it's always something. Thank you for sending me these!!!

@Magnolia Mud ResearchThank you so much I will definitely check that out!! @PeterHhi Peter! my needs: cone 06-04 glazes that don't craze. my hopes and dreams: cone 06-04 glazes that are utilityware safe. my pipe dream in the sky: strike it rich and go back to cone 6 firings so I don't have to worry so much that the body below isn't vitreous. Thanks so much!!

Hi again @Min YES. The ceramic spectrum is exactly what I needed. THANK YOU!

Min that link was EPIC. Thank you so much!!

Thank you to Min, Callie Beller Diesel, and Hulk for chiming in on this post!!! Min I will follow the link and see what comes up! Callie, Inigo is my spirit animal and I definitely feel it when he says "I do not think it means what you think it means" when I'm trying to create a glaze from scratch. Hulk, recently my electric bill has doubled and I can no longer afford to do cone 6 firings which is where my real comfort level lies. So, I am trying to find solutions to do fabled single firings at cone 04 with earhenware so that I can keep everything on the cheepy cheap. Because life. And while I have found MC6 to be a fabulous resource for formulating cone 6 glazes, one which gave me a place to spring from, I haven't found anything similar for lower temps. Cone 06/04 would be ideal. Thanks again to you all for your kind help!!

Hi Peter H (again!) Why would you not start with Parmelee now? Was it too much? Too little?

Peter H This is SUPER helpful. Thank you!

Oh my, back again! If the recommended resource can dicuss why materials are chosen over others in glaze formulation ex: whiting vs wollastonite, that would be great. I understand a lot of that is UMF and limits territory, but a discussion on the chemical interplay is what i'm craving. For example, in the Bloomfield book Colour in Glazes I learned that wollastonite is preferred in industrial applications because it doesn't off gas, reducing chance of pinholes. I need more juicy grapes like that!! Thanks, I promise this is the last one for a while!!! Ret

I should mention that I have read MC6, a lovely book by Chappell which also had similar information on colorants and their application! I'm trying y'all. Thanks, Ret

Kelly in AK, thank you so much for this information! Sorry I'm so late to the game, have been ill. I appreciate the information and will try to apply stat! Thanks!!

Hello everyone! I know this question has been posited several times (one such forum post below) but I need some recommendations. In one of John Britt's videos, he recommended Parmelee 's-Ceramic Glazes and I have also found a book by the lovely Linda Bloomfield called "Science for Potters". Has anyone read either of these , and if so, can you comment as to the level of description of glaze component interactions? Recently I read Bloomfield's Colour in Glazes and found it to be wonderful, advanced yet still introductory (ex: high calcia base with rutile + iron + tin will give a pale yellow orange). But now I need a little more detail. From what John Britt stated in the video about Parmelee, I feel like the information given was similar to what I have already obtained with the Bloomfield book, and so I would not want to buy a similar book to something I already have, because these older out of prints are very spensy. And I'm a broke potter trying to maximize firings and materials by getting formulas fairly close the first time, instead of stumbiling through a million recipes that end up in the trash pile. Of course, I'm all over digital fire, but I can't spin a thread on how to start formulating from the wide list of available ingredients. Thanks so much for your consideration, Ret

Thank you so much for that welcoming attitude. I'm glad you went out of your comfort zone to say that. Makes me feel less bad asking all of this stuff. I have a science background, but I really wish I had studied chem and not biology every time I delve into this subject. You're right, it's overwhelming!! Thank you for being so kind as to share your knowledge. It's so reassuring to have mentors and colleagues in clay that are willing to help each other out. Thanks for being one of those Min!!!! D

Min ---you as usual are a genius. I hadn't even considered the implications of the unglazed bases of my pieces. I found a book written by James Chappell in which he gives some recipes for ware that is vitreous at cone 06... strange but I am super excited to try. I will check out the article above as the book does give a few glaze recipes that will work at this temperature but the targets above will help me branch out from there. THANK YOU AS ALWAYS for being willing to share your knowledge!!