HenryBurlingame Posted August 14 Report Share Posted August 14 Wow, quick rant. It doesn’t feel like I took THAT long a break in making pottery, but as I try to gather up glaze ingredients now I realize that everything I used to use is no longer available. No gerstley borate… no spodumene… bunch of feldspars are gone… no talc… and it sounds like recently there were problems getting Frits and there was no EPK?! Are potters OK lol? Callie Beller Diesel 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick White Posted August 14 Report Share Posted August 14 As Bob Dylan sang, the times they are a'changing. Laguna's stock of Gerstley is all used up, but folks are using Gillespie Borate instead. It's not perfect, so test. Spod and lithium carb are still available, but you have to outbid the battery and electric car companies, and there are no federal tax subsidies for pottery. Laguna has a spod blend, but I haven't tried it. Yeah, feldspar is a problem child - Pacer (Custer) shut down for unannounced reasons, so the potash spar subs are either Mahavir (from India) or G200EU (from Spain). A pox on DalTile's house for pigging all the talc for itself. There are other talc mines, but getting them into distribution takes time. EPK had a problem with a hurricane flooding the mine, but they are back up and shipping again. And Ferro moved the frit factory to Mexico, which took a while to work through, but they are back in production now. Rae Reich, HenryBurlingame, Hulk and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Min Posted August 14 Report Share Posted August 14 I’ve pinned threads with info (including analysis) for the various new spars, talcs and spod substitute within the chem section of the forum. SFKeller, Hulk, Kelly in AK and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callie Beller Diesel Posted August 15 Report Share Posted August 15 Results wise, I’m not mad about using Mahavir instead of Custer. Recipes need a little tweaking to get the silica and alumina sorted out again, but it does some pretty greens. Rae Reich, Hulk and HenryBurlingame 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callie Beller Diesel Posted August 15 Report Share Posted August 15 22 hours ago, HenryBurlingame said: Are potters OK lol? We are now, but it was touch and go there for a bit! Kilns were also in short supply there for a bit because no on me could get sheet metals for the jackets. HenryBurlingame and Rae Reich 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HenryBurlingame Posted August 15 Author Report Share Posted August 15 (edited) Yikes, makes me glad I wasn’t trying to get set up during Covid. It is already hard enough to get the tools I need (looking at you Dolan :-/)! I think I am just going to do all my glazes from scratch again using what is readily available today (and try to keep it US-based materials). I could probably get a decent cone 6 base with neph sy, whiting, frit, silica, and EPK. Colorants don’t seem to be a problem as far as I know right now, so that’s good! Edited August 15 by HenryBurlingame Roberta12 and Hulk 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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