Clay Planet Clays With Commercial Glazes

[Bette]

My nearby clay supplier is Clay Planet in San Jose CA, and I am testing and enjoying their mid-fire clays. I would like to share experience / learn from others who work with these clays and use commercial glazes. I am mostly using glazes from Coyote, Georgies and Amaco. Anyone with similar interest? 

[Pam S]

We are using High Water Buncombe White clay and using several Coyote and Amaco glazes as well as our own blends. The main thing we have found with both commercial glazes is they need to be applied thick. I mean thick! Several can run (Coyote Archie's Base and Opal in particular).

[Marc McMillan]

First off, Clay Planet is a great shop. The people there are very helpful and never ever mind the question that starts with "I'm trying to do...."

I use their Venus White stoneware and love it. I've used it with the glazes you mention with good results. The Coyote glazes I have used include: Black, Really Red, Ice Blue, Gunmetal green, Mottled blue, white....and a few others. I've found the perform better (with my clay body and skutt 1027 electric) firing to cone 5 with a 15 minute hold. Ice blue is a tricky glaze, but when successful is really nice. It likes a thick application that is very smooth. Bumps and runs tend to result in greys. Layering these glazes also works well. Mottled or Oasis Blue and black creates a nice effect.

 

I've used some of the Georgies glazes, but not enough to give you any great info.

The Potter's Choice glazes work well with the same firing cone used above. I really like their Albany slip brown on pieces with a little texture as it breaks beautifully at the texture.  I have had issues with layering some of the glazes and fit with this clay body...we're talking pinging for weeks.

 

Best Regards,

Marc

[Bette]

Thanks Marc - helpful to hear about your experience.

 

I have used Venus too and loved it for smoothness and ease to work with overall. A variety of glazes from Coyote, Amaco and Georgies have fit well, except I have not yet found a zinc-free clear that fits (they craze), so I use Georgies Super Clear and I'm happy with that. I do get some pinging that sometimes goes on for a few days, but don't know which glazes or layering combos are the culprits. 

 

 

I have also been using Clay Planet's 612 Mid-Fire clay because I prefer a clay with some color and iron speckling. Some glazes, such as Coyote's Shino, produce a richer, darker color with this clay - more beautiful to me, and most glazes I use with Venus also look great with this clay. One glaze I like, however, Amaco's PC Tenmoku, seems to require the buff/white clay to show it's stuff so I don't use it with the 612 Mid-Fire. The downsides I have found with the 612 Mid-Fire are that it is slightly more prone to s-cracks and less tolerant of uneven drying when working with attachments. The grog makes it interesting, in a good way to me - but glazes on it tend to pinhole when wet, and unless I smooth them or fill in, the pinholes on this clay will remain after firing. Also the rims of cups can be rough with this clay so I burnish the rims when leather hard.

 

I recently bought a bag of IMCO's Navajo Wheel, which Clay Planet sells, and just started throwing with it. It is very smooth, much like Venus, but very deep red-brown. So far so good; however, no firing experience yet - test tiles are in the works.

 

In my Skutt 1027, my results with ^5 and 15m hold appear to be no different than just firing to ^6.