AlanMalawi Posted July 31, 2023 Report Share Posted July 31, 2023 Homemade Glazes I live in Malawi and am new to pottery. We do not have craft stores and our postal system is not reliable enough to do international on line shopping. Thus buying glazes is extremely difficult for me. As a result I need to be able to make my own glazes. They do not have to be strikingly beautiful - just functional and ,hopefully, varied in terms of basic colours. Using the various ingredients listed below, what glazes can I make suitable for my raw clay and wood fired kiln? In addition, I would love any advice from people who have faced similar issues and or suggestions as to my recipes etc. Regards, Alan Available Ingredients / Chemicals Laundry Bleach Caustic Soda Soda Ash Sodium Carbonate Anhydrous Magnesium Oxide Copper II Oxide Aluminium Oxide Ferrous Oxide Sodium Meta Silicate Sodium Silicate (Waterglass) Gypsum Powder Plaster of Paris Hydrated Lime Portland Cement Silicon Sand (Pool Filter Sand) Clay dug Locally Cat Litter (Clay) Wood Ash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Min Posted July 31, 2023 Report Share Posted July 31, 2023 Any idea hot you will be firing the kiln? High fire (approx 2400F / 1300C) is common for ash glazed wood fired pots. It's easier to get ash to melt at high temperatures than mid range. For any glaze there are three main components, silica, alumina and flux. Colourants are added to a base glaze. You have sources of sodium and magnesium listed, those are fluxes. You have wood ash which can be used to make a glaze, this has fluxes, which amounts and what oxides depends on what was burned, usually contains a lot of calcium. You have local clay which will be a source of alumina and silica (amongst other things). You have colourants copper and iron. It's going to take work to figure out how much of each to use. Have a read of Derek Philip Au's "Ash Glazes" to get started. Rae Reich 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilly Posted August 2, 2023 Report Share Posted August 2, 2023 To add to Min's "three main components" ... The silica is a glass (shiny glassy like substance, not glass itself) former, but it will not melt at any temperature that we can usually reach. The flux makes the silica melt at a lower temperature. The alumina stiffens the other two during firing so they don't slide off the pot. Glazes rarely contain just 3 ingredients as most of the stuff we can obtain includes a mix of some other ingredients, so we have to have 4/5/6/?? or more separate ingredients to balance and make it all work nicely together. I can't help much more, but thought the above might help your understanding of why you will need various stuff. Two of my favourite (simple) cone 6 recipes are: The left hand is from a book called Creative Pottery by Peter Cosentino, the right had starts the same, but changes the first two ingredients. You can try various combinations of those two to get better (or worse). Good luck, it can be a fun and frustrating process Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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