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Glaze Formulas Without A Picture


docweathers

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 This is a bit of gripe

 

Potters want to be friendly to other potters and part of  the ritual is to bestow a gift of glaze recipes. I have probably close to 1000 glazes recipes. Unfortunately, three quarters of them do not have a picture of what the glaze looks like. the expectancy is "just mix up some and try it."  Somehow, I have to sort down to the most promising ones. The only way that I know to do that is with the picture. I will not live long enough to begin to get through all of the recipes that I have.

 

So please if you giving away recipes, it is much appreciated, but have mercy on the rest of us and include a picture of the glaze.

 

 

 

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Guest JBaymore

Plug the glazes into Insight.  I'll bet that 500 of them are duplicates of the same fired chemistry as the other 500 using different raw materials sources.  You can eliminate the need to test a LOT of stuff by looking at the chemistry formula (not the raw materials recipe).

 

best,

 

..............................john

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Without a photo, I've always called a recipe "a rumor of a glaze".  Linda Arbuckle in particular has posted a tremendous number of "glaze recipes" with the note - "I've not tried this recipe".  So many of her recipe's didn't turn out at all that I basically deleted her as a source of ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

Totally disrespectful of this internationally renowned artist and educator!

Totally out of character for this forum.

When you have walked the walk that Linda and other professionals of her calibre contributing to this site have walked, then you may be able to critique their knowledge and ability.

This, I took to be a collaborative forum, one where knowledge is shared, where members showed respect of anf for others, not one of self promotion.

Very distasteful and disappointing.

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Ian Currie's grid series has proven to be very helpful with unknown glaze recipes. I have my own library of the tests from Stoneware Glazes: A Systematic Approach. These were fired on my clay bodies, in my kiln. Now I run the glaze through Hyperglaze and look it up on the tiles. As John says, it's amazing how many glazes out there are really a variation of one of a few basics. The tiles also let me see what's in the neighborhood around the glaze, varying the clay and silica. I can see if the glaze will have a wide or narrow firing range, based on a glaze's appearance on surrounding #'s. Every other # has

a brushstroke of metallic oxide or opacifier, so I get an idea of that variable, as well.  As Ian said, this is glaze fishing with a net, not a pole. 

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I've made so many glazes now that I recognize glazes even when the name is changed. Like the macro-crystalline glaze Babs was trying out.  There really is nothing new under the sun.

 

Knowing the history of a glaze is helpful - like Pete Pinnell's "Weathered Bronze Green", which was a Cone 10 glaze which one of his students discovered "worked" at Cone 6 as well.  I was able to make this glaze far more reliable by replacing lithium carbonate with lithium fluoride, because a cone 10 glaze fired at cone 6 is merely missing enough reliable flux.

 

The quick melting of frits, even though they're chemically identical, will create a different look at cone 6.  These two chemically identical Butterscotch recipes show that. The frit version at Cone 6 is much glassier.

sml_gallery_18533_643_1307776.jpg

 

If you do a lot of Currie Grids you'd discover "Dry Pumpkin" which is just a slight variation in the percentage of several of the ingredients, with the Red Iron Oxide removed.

sml_gallery_18533_643_58130.jpg

 

 

Yet if you were trying to use these glazes as a basis to replicate this Bailey Shino, you'd fail because the underlying chemistry is completely different even though there's a certain similarity in the overall look of the glaze.

sml_gallery_18533_643_1445480.jpg

Ian Currie's grid series has proven to be very helpful with unknown glaze recipes. I have my own library of the tests from Stoneware Glazes: A Systematic Approach. These were fired on my clay bodies, in my kiln. Now I run the glaze through Hyperglaze and look it up on the tiles. As John says, it's amazing how many glazes out there are really a variation of one of a few basics. The tiles also let me see what's in the neighborhood around the glaze, varying the clay and silica. I can see if the glaze will have a wide or narrow firing range, based on a glaze's appearance on surrounding #'s. Every other # has

a brushstroke of metallic oxide or opacifier, so I get an idea of that variable, as well.  As Ian said, this is glaze fishing with a net, not a pole. 

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I just naively found a substitution of one for one which seems to "~double" the amount of fluxing action.  Laguna lists Lithium Fluoride as "somewhat" more fluxy than Lithium Carbonate.

 

Lithium Carbonate is about 18.93% Lithium by weight - 40.74% Li2O and 59.25% Carbon Dioxide.  Lithium Fluoride is 26.76% Lithium by weight, but the Lithium Fluoride does not break-down into Lithium and Fluorine at kiln temperatures - so the lithium is not fully available as a flux.  But the Fluorine also acts as a flux so somehow the net effect is more fluxing action and a slightly different fluxing action.

 

Once you use LiF or fluorine frits like Ferro 3269 or Ferro 5301, you'll soon recognize that particular look which is being contributed by the fluorine.  It's subtle but obvious - more crystal formation and slightly more white threads in a matte glaze like Weathered Bronze Green.

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I see a glaze recipe is simply a starting point for me  but instead of a starting point on a line, it's the starting point in a 360 degree radius, which is fine

Recently I was short of frit 3195 for waterfall brown but saw that 3134 + some aluminia would give me a roughly the same results but it came out a bit  different and better for me. This has allowed me several variations that I also like. and I'm seeing iron blues that were not present before.

It has taken more than a few years to understand that recipes are not fired in stone.

Float blue has a nasty habit of pitting on my clay body, so instead of 2 iron.4 rutile,1 cobalt carb; 2,2,2, where the rutile is replaced by titanium and this works better for me. As for others it may be a great or not.

G200 has changed and is going to change again, so be aware and change by testing.

It's snowing here in central NC and I love it.

Later Wyndham

.

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"It really wasn't necessary to name a specific person, Norm. And maybe those glazes worked for whomever she got the recipes from, just not for you. We all know that glaze performance will vary greatly form studio to studio."

 

I have to support the Norm on this. it's easy to put blind faith in what you find on the website of someone with the professional stature of Linda Arbuckle. As he pointed out, this can cost him a lot of wasted time.  I think he phrased his cautionary note in about as diplomatic away as possible. it is a benefit to all of us to heed this caution. without being specific the caution would have been meaningless.

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"It really wasn't necessary to name a specific person, Norm. And maybe those glazes worked for whomever she got the recipes from, just not for you. We all know that glaze performance will vary greatly form studio to studio."

 

I have to support the Norm on this. it's easy to put blind faith in what you find on the website of someone with the professional stature of Linda Arbuckle. As he pointed out, this can cost him a lot of wasted time.  I think he phrased his cautionary note in about as diplomatic away as possible. it is a benefit to all of us to heed this caution. without being specific the caution would have been meaningless.

 

I don't mean he should put blind faith in someone just because they are well known. Famous or not, I think it's bad form to point out someone like that. He could have simply said that he's 'found a lot of glazes that don't work, even from well known potters, and you should always be sure to test everything'. And like I said, just because the glazes didn't work for him doesn't mean they won't work for someone else. There are few absolutes in glazes. I have great respect for his glaze formulation knowledge, but his experience is not the law.

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I see a glaze recipe is simply a starting point for me  but instead of a starting point on a line, it's the starting point in a 360 degree radius, which is fine

Recently I was short of frit 3195 for waterfall brown but saw that 3134 + some aluminia would give me a roughly the same results but it came out a bit  different and better for me. This has allowed me several variations that I also like. and I'm seeing iron blues that were not present before.

It has taken more than a few years to understand that recipes are not fired in stone.

Float blue has a nasty habit of pitting on my clay body, so instead of 2 iron.4 rutile,1 cobalt carb; 2,2,2, where the rutile is replaced by titanium and this works better for me. As for others it may be a great or not.

G200 has changed and is going to change again, so be aware and change by testing.

It's snowing here in central NC and I love it.

Later Wyndham

.

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but if you don't have 3124 handy and 3134 is one of my go to ingredients.

I'm never trying to reproduce a certain glaze. I might like what I see in one part or an overlap that intrigues me

Wyndham

Good point..........funny, I have 3124 but not 3134.  I never know what frits I "should" have on stock.  There are so many..  

 

Still when I run out and start substituting, I don't get a better glaze. ask my wife.  She will not let some of my glaze "concoctions" in the house.  She even said one of them looked like crap.............well it did look like crap.  But it was food safe. not that anyone would eat off of it.  Perhaps I could make a line of "diet dinnerware."  A plate that makes the person loose his/her appetite.

 

Jed

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but if you don't have 3124 handy and 3134 is one of my go to ingredients.

I'm never trying to reproduce a certain glaze. I might like what I see in one part or an overlap that intrigues me

Wyndham

Good point..........funny, I have 3124 but not 3134.  I never know what frits I "should" have on stock.  There are so many..  

 

Still when I run out and start substituting, I don't get a better glaze. ask my wife.  She will not let some of my glaze "concoctions" in the house.  She even said one of them looked like crap.............well it did look like crap.  But it was food safe. not that anyone would eat off of it.  Perhaps I could make a line of "diet dinnerware."  A plate that makes the person loose his/her appetite.

 

Jed

 

Could be  a great market out there!! Still better make it small. :)

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