Bubbles on glaze surface (Pre firing)

[AdamFG]

Hi all, 

As a novice to this all, I'm learning an awful lot in a very short time! I'm hoping to fire my kiln in the next few days and am applying  clear glazes (Thanks to Tom who has helped out with dipping questions)

I've dipped a bunch of mugs and bowls and 2 things have cropped up. 

Firstly the wax resist (by Mayco) isn't that resistant! The glaze is happily sitting on top of it and drying. I can wipe if off but its not beading off. I'm going to apply another coat to the rest of the bowls and mugs but I was wondering if I'm doing something wrong. 

Secondly ( and its really the big question), the glazed surface has a fair few bubble marks. These can be smoothed over with a finger once the glaze is dry, but again I'm wondering if there is something I'm doing wrong.

I'm planning on firing some of the pots with the marks to see what the outcome of them is, but wanted to float the question here first. 

Thanks again for taking the time to look at my questions. 

Adam 

[liambesaw]

Bubbles in glaze usually crop up when dipping both the inside and outside of a vessel at the same time.  Water from the glaze displaces air in the bisque, so if both sides are wet the air has no choice but to bubble out through the freshly glazed surface.  To remedy, dip outside or inside first, let it dry for a bit, and then glaze the other side (inside or out).

[Hulk]

Raw clay could be a factor in both questions?

You might see a difference in waxing the raw clay vs waxing over dried glaze - the raw clay may require two coats o' wax.

For the bubbles, if you're seeing bubbling through the glaze, perhaps two shorter dips might help, and to that end, a bit wetter glaze, hence thinner coats? ...however, wetter can lead to running/dripping, which can be frustrating (see th' thixotropy link).

[Min]

I've had some pretty bad wax resist in the past, it took ages to dry and was still a bit sticky hours after applying it. A couple things that helped it was to either burnish it with a piece of scrap thin plastic (like from produce bags) and the other was to run the heat gun over it and then do a quick burnish. Heat gun method needed a bit more care so I didn't heat one area too long but it worked well. That might be worth a try with your wax. (I gave up on that wax in the end, I order Forbes wax in now, works so much better than what I can get locally)

edit: are you using spodumene in your glaze? It has soap residue that can cause tons of little bubbles in the glaze that show up on pots. 

[liambesaw]

I've had that with anything containing lithium, @Min not just spodumene

[Min]

2 minutes ago, liambesaw said:

I've had that with anything containing lithium, @Min not just spodumene

Good to know! 

[AdamFG]

Wax resist issue sorted... mixed with water (3 parts water to 1 part resist) and it is working very nicely now.