Commercial glazes in soda kiln

[kcb]

Can you use commercial glazes in a soda kiln, and if so which ones work best?

[Callie Beller Diesel]

HI and welcome!

*Theoretically*, you can put any glaze in a soda kiln, as long as it matures at the cone you’re firing to.  But most soda kilns I’ve worked with were fired to cone 10, and there’s not a lot of commercial glazes on the market at that range. You wouldn’t want to put a cone 6 glaze into a cone 9 or 10 soda firing where it’s going to get fluxed out even more by the atmosphere. And that’s before you even touch on how reduction affects things. 

In the event you’re firing a cone 6 soda, you would straight up have to test it and find out. The manufacturers don’t really provide a lot of iexamples of  their products  in reduction atmosphere, let alone more specialty firings. If whoever is hosting this firing isn’t offering to supply some glazes for you, I’d choose ones that resemble more traditional glazes: some kind of iron saturate, a translucent blue, green or white. Keep it simple. The soda reactions on the clay itself is going to be the star of the show. 

The soda vapour is going to react with the clay body to form its own glaze. So whatever is in the direct path of the flame is going to be at least partially obliterated by that effect.  Rough textures will be softened and fine details may be lost. Soda (vs salt) is more prone to flashing, so using  slips, soft/round texture and carving are a good way of  working with that. You might try using some underglazes. Many will burn out, but black, and some blues and greens could work. 

[Denice]

I put a large bowl in a soda firing and it came out of the kiln with the most beautiful glaze.  It was a big hit,  I still have it I refused to sell it.    Denice

[kcb]

What kind of glaze did you use?