Glaze and clay shortage

[Dayle]

Hi, I am finding that when I run out of ANYTHING related to pottery, I can't replace the item. This includes clay and glazes. All the stores are out, including the main manufacturers. I noted that there is supply chain back up last year, but does anyone know why they are unable to manufacture and supply glaze? Is this all supplied from overseas? 

[Callie Beller Diesel]

Quick  summary/Tl;dr:  most things are coming to us, just slower than we’re used to. If you’re producing professionally on any level, plan ahead and make sure you test any new chemical or clay batches, especially ones that will be purchased after about June of this year.

Much of it is supply chain issues, which is a complicated mix of a number of things going wrong all at once. We don’t get a whole lot of dry materials that can’t be easily substituted for from overseas. It’s expensive to haul dirt that has a relatively low resale value, and nothing we use in pottery is mined specifically for us. But things like steel for kiln jackets, circuit boards, and kanthal wire for kiln elements have all been impacted by the pandemic because of assorted geopolitical issues. With Covid lockdowns in China, many goods and services were back ordered. Things are moving, but on and off. It’s typical for Asian producers to ramp up production in the latter months of the year in preparation for Lunar New Year, so there has been some easing of the backlogs that will continue through the spring. But depending on what goes on, we may see other slowdowns.

Closer to home, there have been some storms that affected shipping, a worldwide backlog of available shipping containers, and worker impacts at port cities. That, and the state of the trucking industry in the US for the last 10+years have meant ALL forms of goods and services are moving, but more slowly than we’re used to.

Regarding raw materials, the two notable things affecting pottery suppliers have been:

Daltile, who is a tile maker and was a major talc suppler to potters, decided that they wanted to strengthen their vertical integration, so they stopped selling talc outside their organization. There are of course other sources of talc and pottery suppliers are still working with existing stockpiles, but that still means reformulating a LOT of commercial glazes, casting slips, and white mid and low fire clays. Some suppliers have stopped producing their smallest sizes of glaze bottles, and instead are concentrating on their 1 pint quantities. Plastics availability may be playing into this as well. Read this article if you like nerdy things like I do.

Cimtalc was looking promising, but according to my supplier who spoke to Tony at Plainsman, there is apparently a significant difference in COE that folks are trying to find workarounds for. I’ve seen mutterings about other talc sources being tested, but I don’t have anything as concrete as an article to link to. It’s estimated stockpiles of the Daltile talc will run out later this year, so make sure to run tests on any new batch numbers of clays and commercial glazes containing new talc.

The other item was that Ferro Corp moved their frit manufacture to Mexico, so there were some supply shortages last year as they switched facilities. The new facility is up and running, but my supplier tells me they may still be working out some QC issues: again, test any new batch numbers of Ferro frits before making any large glaze batches.

 

[oldlady]

to add one thing to callie's great answer, once things are available, buy whole bags whenever possible.   some ingredients in glazes are in all of them or at least most.  silica is one that comes to mind.  at my firing level, cone 6, i use a lot of nephaline syenite.  fifty pound bags sound like a lot and it is, but you will have the things you need for a long time.  i am still working with the stuff i bought in the 1990s and my recipes still work because the ingredients are the ones available at the time.  if you only buy one 50 pound bag of something at a time, it is not such a budget breaker.  btw, does anyone want some spanish red iron oxide?   when i bought it the cost for 50 pounds was less than 5 pounds.  

[Mark C.]

I had  my order come in today from Laguna Clay  via truck /trailer to my lumber yard

#2400 pallet of Daves Porcelain -thats a full pallet of 48 boxes-all cone 10

#1000 of dry special order  custom rutile glaze -cone 10

100s  C-98 talc /texas talc alos goes by Pioneer talc

100s 325 silica

10# cobalt Oxide

Now I ordered this glaze back in December  so its been a long wait to get it made and just last week they where out of rutile to make the glaze last week as well-this glaze also uses c-98 Texas talc which they still have some.

I'm currenly running some tests with the new Cimtalc in my rutile glaze

My Custom glaze has gone up nearly double  the cost in the past 5 years when I ordered it last  time and it uses a fair amount of talc which has gone way up as well.

The clay was stock and they had it-I just got this smaller amout as I was getting the glaze trucked north 850 mile s so I thought I should get more  stuff for that trip and I can load two pallets at a time into my truck.

The cobalt Oxide has surprisingly  not gone up nearly as much as the the carbonated version

Oldlady you found out about bulk buying with that red Iron Ox,i'm sitting on that same bag as my  weekly use switched to higher purity red Iron oxide some time ago and now I buy that in 50# bags.Its a bit more spendy than normal Red Iron.

So today I moved all that material and we unloaded and packed up  a large glaze kiln load for large wholesale order in march-I should sleep good tonight

Now as to shortages-yes they have hit the clay/ceramic manufacture's and plan on more lead time to get your stuff and that means thinking ahead more  on the ordering

 

[oldlady]

oh, the muscles and bones are shuddering at the thought of all that lifting and carrying!

yes, i bought in bulk in 1990, frits 3124 and 3134, neph sy, whiting, silica 325, wollastonite, dolomite, talc, colemanite, ball clay, several feldspars, and i cannot remember the names of all of them.  it is only the red iron that i do not like to use, so messy!  some containers are getting down to about a quarter of their capacity but that is still a lot.  the containers are the very large rubbermaid totes.  NO toting,  just sliding out and scooping.  lots of them were less than  $12 and i was moving to the country.

[carissman]

Since Amaco HF-12, satin clear, is unavailable, what is everyone’s favorite commercial cone 5/6 satin clear? (Unable to mix my own.) Thanks.