Tin Prices are doubling

[Mark C.]

Just a heads up if you use Tin buy some NOW

Distributor Tin cost has just doubled 

Most Tin is from Mymar and its a mess now politically

I'm not much of Tin user myself but if you are may want to double down on it now

Edited June 11, 2022 by Mark C.

[Roberta12]

I just checked with my Denver supplier.  Tin ox is $33/pound right now.  I think it was $25 last year.  I haven't bought any for awhile.    

[Mark C.]

As a Laguna distributor the NEW current price is $62 at the best wholesale price break

This high price will start when suppliers reorder-so just a heads up

[Mark C.]

Rutile is way up as well.Just another heads up

[Babs]

Mining boys and girls paying megabucks for fuel here.

[ATauer]

It has been a couple weeks, and I just checked US Pigments where I have always found the best prices for tin, and it is $35/lb, actually down from a few months ago when I bought it for $40 (my local suppliers are sky high and dreaming anyone is going to buy tin from them at the prices they are charging).  Irritatingly, Stannous chloride, obviously another form of tin I use for fuming in raku, is $45/lb at US Pigments. The place I drive 4 hours in my neighboring state to buy Stannous Chloride at $30/lb is out of stock (obviously I make the drive to stock up on some other things as well, they do a lot of raku including demonstrations every Saturday so they have Cobalt sulfate at an unbelievable price that they will actually drop if I buy 5 lb at a time, well worth it, plus then I don’t have to drive there as often. None of my local suppliers have ferric chloride and Dakota Pottery Supply can’t ship that to me like they could a lot of other things because it is so corrosive to metal none of the shipping companies will touch it. Thankfully a gallon lasts a while. They also sell pyrophyllite for the most ridiculous rock bottom price of any place I have found it, and again  my local suppliers don’t have it but if they did it would be quite expensive, and I use 10 of it per 100 batch of my porcelain and plan to put it in the white stoneware I’m developing next, so it is worth it to drive there to save that much money when I need to buy 50-100 lb at a time. Plus my grandma’s is half way there, so I can break up my drive visiting her, and usually at least one of the 4 hour trips just do two hours and sleep over at grandma’s and break up the driving time). 

So I don’t know if the tin scare was just that, or if the suppliers just haven’t received their new more expensive stuff. I can’t predict US Pigments at all, they may very well have a huge stockpile of tin and plan on undercutting everyone by a lot. Or I should buy a bunch now just in case, which I’d rather not do. On the fence about the Stannous chloride- one other place has it for $30/lb but their shipping is so damn expensive if takes away any savings. I’ve got a lb of tin at home, and a jar of tin from a grouping of oxides I bought along with some tools and stuff at a potter’s estate sale. The husband clearly had no idea what he had. I did give him a fair price for all the stuff I bought, but I got bottles that have to have at least a lb of copper carb, cobalt carb, manganese, and tin. Two lb seems like a pretty good amount to me, on the other hand I’ve been collecting a ton of recipes with 1-5 tin in them, and for some reason I don’t totally understand it seems like every raku recipe has tin in it and I don’t know why, it isn’t needed for opacifying and due to the lack of educational materials on how raku recipes work, I don’t understand how tin makes copper lusters and a lot of the multi-color recipes work- I will be making some test tiles without tin to see how they change. Red lusters and turquoises that turn to gorgeous oxblood copper reds in reduction in the raku kiln I get, the copper needs the tin to essentially be a lowfire copper red. The rest I don’t get and hope my test tiles come out fine, because the amount of tin I will be going through with raku is going to bankrupt me. I just wish there were some decent articles explaining the chemistry!

[PeterH]

2 hours ago, ATauer said:

and for some reason I don’t totally understand it seems like every raku recipe has tin in it and I don’t know why, it isn’t needed for opacifying and due to the lack of educational materials on how raku recipes work,

Only hand-waving, but I expect the importance of tin (and iron) in some copper glazes is because all three elements have variable valencies; and in the right circumstances can help redox reactions  move copper from Cu(II) to Cu(I) or even Cu(0) -- and/or buffer it against oxidation once it's in the desired state. There is also Weyl's point that the presence of tin increases the solubility of metallic copper in a glass (or glaze), which can be important in obtaining colloidal copper particles.

Woldemar A. Weyl Coloured Glasses has some interesting thoughts on the colouring mechanisms in glasses. Not cheap, but if you can  borrow it on an interlibrary loan ...

Edited June 28, 2022 by PeterH
typo

[Bill Kielb]

25 minutes ago, PeterH said:

and for some reason I don’t totally understand it seems like every raku recipe has tin in it and I don’t know why,

I think Peter is spot on, in reduction for copper reds for instance you will see about three times more tin than copper. Many Raku glazes are about surface reduction. Maybe a More chemistry than colorant view.

[PeterH]

On 6/28/2022 at 11:04 AM, PeterH said:

Only hand-waving, but I expect the importance of tin (and iron) in some copper glazes is because

Nice discussion on copper/tin interactions in
Copper Red Glazes https://digitalfire.com/article/copper+red+glazes
Well worth reading the whole page, but the highlight is perhaps

Sn does a couple things. First it improves the solubility of Cu. Metals, per se, aren't really very soluble in glaze and if you can't get the metal dissolved, it can't very well be precipitated in any organized fashion. Second, on cooling, Cu tends to attract Sn atoms from the glaze. These atoms sort of "coat" the crystals as they are developed and thus serves to control their size by limiting the attachment of further Cu atoms to the crystal. This behavior is that of a protective colloid and it is of great advantage. Because if the crystals get big, the glaze turns "livery" looking, and the doughnut remains elusive. Third, to the extent that Sn has limited solubility in SiO2 or B2O3 based glassy material, it probably also serves to provide nuclei on which the coloring crystals can grow.

Tin oxide is added to all practical non-lead Cu red glazes in amount way beyond what's necessary to promote good solution of Cu in the glaze - many compositions contain up to 4-wt%. Of course, if there's too much tin it doesn't all dissolve -- causing opacity. This may or may not be desirable.

 

Also of possible interest
The Dual Mechanisms of Tin Oxide in Copper Red Glazes https://glazy.org/posts/168150

Edited June 29, 2022 by PeterH

[Dick White]

Peter, those are some interesting articles. There is mention of Fe2O3 (RIO) having a similar effect as tin. I wonder if it can be substituted for the tin to obtain the copper red, and if so, how much?

dw

[PeterH]

9 hours ago, Dick White said:

Peter, those are some interesting articles. There is mention of Fe2O3 (RIO) having a similar effect as tin. I wonder if it can be substituted for the tin to obtain the copper red, and if so, how much?

 

- If there is iron in the recipe I would strongly suspect that it's there to alter the redox chemistry.

- OTOH from what I've read tin increases the solubility of metallic copper in the glaze - aiding the formation of copper colloids/nanoparticles. Suitable redox conditions are necessary but not sufficient for this.  [Digitalfire points out that lead, bismuth and zinc may also act as solvents.]

- Although orchestrating things to end up with suitably dispersed nanoparticles of the right size at the right time ( in the cooled glaze) remains  elusive. And there may well be several different redox/solubility paths to achieve this.

It's worth noticing that the formation of copper ruby glass seems far better understood/managed. Probably because controlling the redox chemistry of a covered vat of glass is far easier than maintaining the redox chemistry of a thin film of glaze in contact with a changing kiln atmosphere. There are also a lot fewer variables to play with when experimenting.

Most readers stop here, long ramble follows

Substituting iron for tin I'm reluctant to comment on this, but  it's a fair question so here goes.

- Beside it's redox properties tin can be  used to increase the solubility of metallic copper, and also to act as a colloidal protector of colloidal copper. Iron provide some redox properties, but non of the colloidal-enhancing./protective ones.

- Several of the recipes in https://puttgarden.com/crystal/friends/tom-turner/9-9-09/cu-red-tc/art0003.htm contain red iron oxide. Interestingly the two with the lowest tin levels contain iron.

- If you try any experiments I'd start substituting atom-for-atom. Confirm with wiki, but molar masses are SnO2=150.7 & Fe2O3=159.7 so for atom-for-atom use about half the weight of red iron oxide.

- Personally I might  try adding iron to an existing recipe first, and see what happens.

Tin seems to be involved in keeping a  lot of balls in the air https://digitalfire.com/article/copper+red+glazes

In terms of composition, the glaze needs to be able to support the solution of Cu. To achieve this it needs to have things in it that are friendly to the presence of metal. The best of these is PbO - I can hear the gasps of horror now. Yes, that Godzilla of the Elements. Bismuth is another good option in some glazes, Zn helps and there is, of course, tin (Sn).

Sn does a couple things. First it improves the solubility of Cu. Metals, per se, aren't really very soluble in glaze and if you can't get the metal dissolved, it can't very well be precipitated in any organized fashion. Second, on cooling, Cu tends to attract Sn atoms from the glaze. These atoms sort of "coat" the crystals as they are developed and thus serves to control their size by limiting the attachment of further Cu atoms to the crystal. This behavior is that of a protective colloid and it is of great advantage. Because if the crystals get big, the glaze turns "livery" looking, and the doughnut remains elusive. Third, to the extent that Sn has limited solubility in SiO2 or B2O3 based glassy material, it probably also serves to provide nuclei on which the coloring crystals can grow.

Tin oxide is added to all practical non-lead Cu red glazes in amount way beyond what's necessary to promote good solution of Cu in the glaze - many compositions contain up to 4-wt%. Of course, if there's too much tin it doesn't all dissolve -- causing opacity. This may or may not be desirable.

Tin is volatile at high temperatures and a lot of it leaves the very thin glaze film by evaporation. Compensating this evaporation is important to how much tin will remain dissolved in the glaze. This explains the large amounts of SnO2 in many reported glaze compositions. Some kilns have turbulent atmospheres and a larger amount of evaporation would be anticipated in these circumstances. In glassmaking, if you melt in a covered pot, in which evaporation is not an issue (in most cases), the amounts of SnO2 required seldom exceed 2 wt%.

If you use too little Sn to promote the solution, Cu will precipitate on the spot with dreadful results. This is one of the reasons that application of the glaze is so important and why really thin films often fail to develop a nice red - when red color forms at all in a tin depleted glaze, it often has the color of liver instead of a crisp red.

The amount of Cu necessary to develop a good red depends on how much of it can be dissolved. This depends on how much the glaze would dissolve on its own and how much this is improved by the presence of Sn. Many pottery glazes contain what I feel is a lot of Cu-oxide in the batch, but that's just an opinion. The best reds always contain the least amount of Cu. Reduction is the critical step in producing a nice Cu red.

 Note that some of the tin in the glaze can be lost by evaporation (especially high-fire & gas?) . By reducing evaporation  you may be able to reduce the tin in the recipe without needing to substitute.  Maybe some of the ideas here (to reduce the loss of copper) might also reduce the loss of tin?
https://puttgarden.com/crystal/friends/tom-turner/9-9-09/cu-red-tc/art0003.htm
One must be able to apply a red glaze fairly thickly so it can make it through the higher fire reduction periods without dissipating its copper content. There are all sorts of simple methods one can use to ease this problem:

1. Brush on iron oxide over the glaze. This will help seal the surface at high temperature.
2. Brush a thin solution of copper slip under the glaze. This will produce a barrier to hold in the copper.
3. Fire the pot in a sagger that has copper carbonate brushed on the inside of it. This works to keep the copper gasses flashing back on the pot.
4. Put a clear, slightly lower-firing glaze over the base red glaze. This acts in manner similar to the iron oxide but allows more color to come through.
5. Add a small amount of silicon carbide powder to the glaze. This creates an internal reduction that dissipates less rapidly.

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by PeterH

[ATauer]

Wow, my question brought up some super deep glaze knowledge that I have not come across and I am really glad to have learned this, especially as one of my projects when I’m out of the hospital is developing some better cone 6 silicon carbide/oxidation copper reds (real deep oxblood reds). 

I still do have to complain though that with a ton of raku glazes tin is put in in fairly large amounts in a lot of recipes that don’t even have any copper, and where it is definitely not being used as an opacifier. I don’t know if this is a case of a lot of recipes changing hands and getting modified over the years, which may have started out with copper in them or needing an opacifier, and other ingredients and colorants got added and other subtracted and the tin was just left in because people thought why not, it isn’t going to hurt anything, or it doesn’t make that much of a difference, except it is really hard when looking at some of these recipes to get a sense, especially since many are multi-color or turquoise recipes, when indeed the tin may make a difference (I mean in a lot of cases if you add a little tin, and some titanium,  and some rutile, you can make magical things happen to glazes) or not, so it is really frustrating. A lot of these glazes I will look at and say if this was a cone 06 or cone 6 glaze it would definitely not need tin, but I worry about pulling it from a lot of them and then maybe missing out on some great effects, in at least some of them potentially. Because it is just so damn expensive I can’t be putting tin in recipes where it likely doesn’t need it. The tricky thing is with raku and post-firing reduction, test tiles can give you complete misinformation, as a lot of these glazes look very different each time they are fired and reduced, depending on a whole lot of factors including the weather. Even doing small test pots with versions of the glazes with and without tin may be misleading, especially as I am not super experienced in raku and am still working on my post-firing reduction technique and deciding which combustibles I like best, which can also change how a glaze will turn out if you use something different for certain glazes once you have enough experience with them to know that. 

 

[Bill Kielb]

2 hours ago, ATauer said:

I like best, which can also change how a glaze will turn out if you use something different for certain glazes once you have enough experience with them to know that. 

For now might I suggest the simple view that the tin is essential for copper reds and it is chemistry ………not colorant. If you accept that then reduction is simply attained by a really dirty carbon monoxide rich atmosphere with very little oxygen to reoxidize things so to speak.

From there most all reduction is a combination of reducing things to create a color or carbon trapping for effect. So my most consistent Raku pieces were reduced in a bucket lined with plain old newspaper, inverted in a tub with a few inches of water to seal out air. Once I figured that out it was much easier to compare recipes and changes. Dead leaves, organics ……… I found newspaper did the job consistently just fine.

So the common reducibles: copper, iron, tin (with copper, prox 3:1), nickel, cobalt and manganese. Common effects: reduction colors, iron acts more as a flux and turns black, carbon trapping, crackle (a glaze flaw) and horse hair etc….

Experimenting is still one of the best ways to learn though, for sure.

I have spent a lot of time getting smooth reduction from all parts of a kiln. Even reduction that does not reoxidize is very important in kilns and Raku. Don’t let air in is what I learned and copper red is a decent indicator of how you are doing.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Bill Kielb

[ATauer]

13 hours ago, Bill Kielb said:

For now might I suggest the simple view that the tin is essential for copper reds and it is chemistry ………not colorant. If you accept that then reduction is simply attained by a really dirty carbon monoxide rich atmosphere with very little oxygen to reoxidize things so to speak.

From there most all reduction is a combination of reducing things to create a color or carbon trapping for effect. So my most consistent Raku pieces were reduced in a bucket lined with plain old newspaper, inverted in a tub with a few inches of water to seal out air. Once I figured that out it was much easier to compare recipes and changes. Dead leaves, organics ……… I found newspaper did the job consistently just fine.

So the common reducibles: copper, iron, tin (with copper, prox 3:1), nickel, cobalt and manganese. Common effects: reduction colors, iron acts more as a flux and turns black, carbon trapping, crackle (a glaze flaw) and horse hair etc….

Experimenting is still one of the best ways to learn though, for sure.

I have spent a lot of time getting smooth reduction from all parts of a kiln. Even reduction that does not reoxidize is very important in kilns and Raku. Don’t let air in is what I learned and copper red is a decent indicator of how you are doing.

That’s interesting that you say don’t let air in for in-kiln raku reduction, as I’ve been taught you definitely need some air during the kiln reduction or you will not be able to do combustion (as it is essential for combustion), and that a lot of times people stall out their kiln because they’ve reduced the oxygen too much while doing reduction. You certainly are getting some gorgeous copper reds in your raku kiln! For reduction in the kiln, I reduce the air enough that my glaze is a messy orange flame, but usually don’t completely cover the flue entirely, and monitor with my pyrometer that while the reduction is happening I’m either still climbing with temp if that is what I want, but usually I’m doing it at a point where I just want to keep the temperature were it is as, so I am making sure that the temp isn’t dropping, and if it starts to I add a little oxygen back in. Raku is completely my first time doing any kind of reduction (not counting SiC) with a kiln myself, as I have never had a gas kiln and the few places I took some classes didn’t teach us anything about firing. I’ve learned a lot about firing through books, and also some excellent YouTube videos, but they are all about how to fire a normal gas kiln, and not a raku kiln. Obviously I have learned and read a lot about raku firings, but the books make doing 20-30 minutes of reduction really easy. One way that I do reduction in the kiln that is really easy is to do soda firing (mixed with some borax), as I really enjoy the effects the soda makes especially on unglazed pots and slip covered pots, and with adding the borax to the soda I just almost get close to a glaze forming. It immediately makes the kiln extremely reduced, and turns any copper containing glazed pots copper red right away. I have a fiber kiln I made that I coated in rigidizer (it was necessary as my kiln is built with rings, so I can have it be normal sized and not waste propane for regular sized pots, but since I have a kiln now that I can fire things on their sides to 43 inches I wanted to be able to fire 43 inch tall sculpture and even some pots. The rigidizer helps me create kind of a roll of the ceramic fiber on the bottom and tops so the rings will sit on each other so I can easily change sizes) and I also have ITC-100 coating the kiln, so I’m hopeful both those things will help protect the fiber from the soda. 

I don’t do it as often as I would like as, despite the fact my raku books casually talk about throwing salt or soda in the kiln no big deal, without any of the warnings about the damage those two can do to fiber or soft brick kilns, or the fact that it will always be a bit of a soda kiln because it will be absorbed and volatize from the bricks/fiber (although I’m hoping my coatings is preventing some of that) they also don’t mention anything about the need to scrape your shelves thoroughly after doing a raku soda firing! At least I know enough to be doing these things to protect it as much as possible. 

Right now my only real downside for reduction firing in my raku kiln is everyone everywhere is out of burners, I’m on a list with Ward Burner to get a double set of raku M100s when they get them available again, and very sadly missed by just 2 days the last M100 (for the best price I’ve ever seen) being sold from ClayPlanet, and everyone else is out. Someone from my state who I met in a Facebook group for Twin Cities Clay Makers provided me with information on how to make my own, which he had done for his homemade stoneware temp firing gas kiln, but that design did not have a primary air intake like the Venturi burners do, which I really want, so it was easier and possibly cheaper for me to just buy a weed burner, which means I can only adjust the flame by adjusting the amount of fuel plus of course secondary air inputs. I know a lot of people fire raku for years with weed burners and love it and find no need to upgrade to a Venturi burner, but I really want that primary air intake to be the way I adjust the flame, not the amount of fuel, as it should significantly save on the amount of propane used. I’m getting two since Ward Burner is set up that if you buy a second one with all the include double amount of hoses etc it is only $90 more than buying one! And I have plans to make a version of Ian Gregory’s flat pack kiln where I can fire various sized sculptures,  up to 6 ft or bigger, and the person I spoke to at Ward Burner said with the amount of cubic feet those could potentially take, although I can adjust the kiln so it is exactly the right size for the sculpture and no bigger, I might need a second burner for some of those especially if I am wanting to get to cone 6 or even maybe cone 10, and it seems much smarter knowing that is in my future to get the extra burner for very cheap now, instead of paying $250 for a second one later. And if I win the lottery and am able to buy a permanent kiln big enough for my sculptures that I make in sections now, well then I can always sell the second burner easily. No way to lose. Damn this supply shortage for everything, no one seems to even know why Venturi burners aren’t being made or what is going on, I know I would be having a lot smoother firings with raku if I had a Venturi burner instead of the weed burner. 

As to your first sentence, I have always maintained that tin is essential for copper reds and glazes that have copper in them in raku that are multicolored, I don’t question that, although it has been super interesting learning the chemistry better for why that is so. It is just the recipes that don’t have copper in them that have tin, where it is not being using for opacifying, that I don’t know if it is actually necessary or just a hold over from an earlier version of the recipe. I guess I might just try and avoid those recipes altogether, and stick with the recipes I know produce amazing colors, like Dry Alligator, and Rick’s Turquoise and I have a few others, plus a few different shades of turquoise or aqua and some copper and/or red lusters. It will be hard to restrain myself, because I love trying new glazes so much, and adjusting them etc, but with those plus clear and white crackle, naked raku, and using up some of the cone 06 glazes that I’ll never use otherwise I have plenty of variety in surfaces. I’ve also been considering trying out some midfire glazes like Steven Branfman does, under a clear raku glaze, to see what effects I get. While I want to become very good at raku, I started it with the express purpose to help my perfectionism my knowing for a long time I’m going to be ruining, cracking, breaking etc lots of pots, or just having some turn out just ugly…not that I can’t refire in some cases, but for my sculpting and just my life long over achiever/perfectionism personality I need to get less attached to my work and know that I can just suck at stuff until I hopefully at some point get good. Raku and pitfiring every Friday if I can is helping me internalize the lessons that you can try and control what you can, but that a lot of what happens in ceramics is not under your control. And when I do have something work out it is so much sweeter. So plenty of experimentation….

I would use newspapers but honestly I don’t even know where to find them anymore??? Long ago gave up weekly newspaper delivery, even before news on the internet was quite so prominent, because I have a cat who loves the texture of newspaper very much in a bad way, where anytime a newspaper or shiny advertisement fell on the floor he would immediately go pee on it. Minneapolis used to have lots of stands with various free newspapers in them, that I could have raided for free, but those have all shut down and I never see free newspapers anymore.  There is a local neighborhood newspaper that is delivered like once a month, I suppose I could call them up and ask them if they have extra newsprint as I’ve heard when they print newspapers there is usually some extra blank paper that just gets recycled. Right now I am using sawdust and sometimes some wood chips, depending on the piece, and I try and seal the metal container by wrapping old wet towels around the lid, which has been working fantastically at reducing smoke to almost nothing (I’m in a very urban place and I can get away with my pitfires since we are allowed to have backyard fires in Minneapolis, only needing a permit if it is a really huge bonfire, although since I put so many metal salts etc with fumes in them I’m just waiting for one of my neighbors to complain to the city about me, but so far so good as they don’t spend hardly anytime outside at night) as well as providing a lot of reduction post fire, sometimes especially if I’m trying to keep part of it oxidized & turquoise, it is really too much reduction, so I have been going through some trial and error with doing a quick cooling in air before putting it in the reduction container, or spraying that part with water, but I am also, maybe more than I should be, burping the lids sometimes to have parts oxidize, as otherwise I try when possible to just let the piece cool down naturally in the container until it is ready to be taken out and further cooled in the air the last little bit, especially as I don’t have nearly as many reduction containers as I’d like so I need to be able to reuse them with the next batch coming out of the kiln most of the time.

I adore the horsehair raku look, especially as I grew up with horses, but the only person in my life these days with horses who could give me a plentiful supply is rather flaky and I can’t count on her. I hate to have to pay for something that should be so easy to get free, but does anywhere sell horse  hair that I can use? I also have been wondering where people get feathers for it, as the Migratory Bird Act prohibits collecting and using any feathers from birds that migrate, which covers most wild birds, so you can’t just go hiking and collect feathers for use as you do. Unless you are a Native American ceramic artist, in which case you have the right to use bird feathers as you see fit! I’ve been trying without success to figure out where people are getting feathers from. If I can’t get horsehair, I’ve been wondering if the thin immature grape vines in my yard might not provide a very similar look, that might even be hard to tell the difference from horsehair? Or maybe I have to just invent something of my own, using various plants along with sugar to create interesting looks…I’m really bummed because before I became a full time sculptor, I was a wildlife veterinary epidemiologist and professor, and had also spent a lot of time working in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries. I have a ton of friends who are zoo vets. I have contacted them on Facebook, asking if they could ask their zoo Director if they could perhaps collect some hair, feathers, snake skins and other reptile shed skins,  and maybe some other cool shed body stuff, and that I would donate half the price of the piece when it sold to the zoo, and that it would come with descriptions of which species were not harmed in the process from which zoo, and also that I would donate some of the pots to be sold in their gift shops, which considering the popularity of horsehair raku I think they would sell like hotcakes. I tried telling them that these pieces tend to fetch pretty good prices, and it would be good advertisement for their zoo. And literally not one of my zoo vet friends would respond at all- they would respond to other things I interacted with them , but not that at all about that request- which I specified I would be looking for things from animals not on the endangered list but that are commonly in zoos. I think they don’t understand, even though I showed them pictures, what I was asking for and didn’t want to go to their directors with a request, even though they would get, potentially eventually a substantial, amount of donations and plus keeping full price of the ones I would donate for them to sell in their gift shops, which would stand out so much from other zoos and could even get press. But I think they can’t see the big picture. I have one friend with a snake who has promised me her sheds, although with only one snake that is few and far between. And I can’t even get horse hair! Ridiculous. I know some people use their own hair, but mine is too short and though I have a lot of hair, apparently an exceptional amount of hair according to my stylist, each strand is actually very fine, so if I grew it out long enough they wouldn’t be thick enough to show up. I’ve got endless amounts of cat hair but that isn’t going to work!

[Pres]

On 6/11/2022 at 4:51 PM, Mark C. said:

Just a heads up if you use Tin buy some NOW

Distributor Tin cost has just doubled 

Most Tin is from Mymar and its a mess now politically

I'm not much of Tin user myself but if you are may want to double down on it now

Whoosh! I was so shocked this last summer when I made my way to SC in Pittsburgh. I had not bought materials in years except for an oxide here or there shipped to the house.  This time I was way down on all sorts of glaze materials. What a shock... . . I was also really disappointed in what they had on hand in the way of equipment, kiln furniture and other items. Looking to visit my sister in NY, and maybe swing by Baileys on the way home.

 

best,

Pres

[Mark C.]

Its all going up and most places are out of most equipment and only now getting a few items in stock again.

If you see it and need it buy it is my advice

Laguna clay prices went up across the board last month.