We’ve had a glaze journal running on Slack since late October. If anyone is interested, I can post screenshots of the discussion up to this point. That point is: I’m documenting every glaze run to learn for my self and develop better techniques in glazing. The discussion will start with the same topic I post in Slack, but I’m sure it will vary here. It’s been fun so far and has already improved our operation in real time. Looking forward to your input!
Clean run with only one consideration. We are contemplating a cone 6+ fire separate from a Cone 5-. The Stoneware, Potters Choice and a few other commercial glazes really require a cone 6 to match their chip color. Our house dips are pushing overrunning at that temp and need to be run at cone 5. I don’t think it will slow us down very much to make this distinguishment on the shelves and it will help everyone get what they want.
Vulcan hit another perfect cone 5. Some splatter from a test ring which I suspect is glaze droplets caught in wax, but I cannot verify. There is also some weird skin curdling that I suspect is an underglaze over a normal glaze, but nothing I’ve seen before. The final image is one going into the kiln that had some dabbing, but still had some bare exposure. The dip glazes going in seem to be on the thick side, and it looked like there might be some potential for cracking on some of these works.
Helios gave us and uneventful glaze, which is always good. Vase test tiles stuck to their rack, as I anticipated. The kiln wash is starting to pull up the unremovable glaze spills. Only took 7 firings…
1 Like
This many shelves being rewashed since the last wash about 2 weeks ago. Some of it is a continuation of pulling up glaze from the bowl-o-thon massacre but most of it is smattering most likely coming from dip glaze not wiped off wax resist.
This glaze run I conducted a small experiment. I ran a cone 5 medium slow speed rather than medium speed. I’m trying to find a sweet spot between five and six where I can run Stoneware and House Dip. There isn’t one. Denim turned green rather than blue and there seemed to be too much run of color on edges, leaving a clear glaze over visible clay. Possibly some dripping from the house glaze. Well, now we know for sure.
Standard cone 5 med speed. Blue denim is working fine color wise. A little bit of dripping. Still some issues with glaze stuck in wax sticking to the shelf. One work has some debris that may be kiln wash. Normally kiln wash would chip away even on top, but if sunk deep enough could gloss over. Isolated to only one work in the kiln.
Athena at a slightly higher than cone 6. For some of these works it was a re-fire. A clear stoneware glaze that was cloudy from a cone 5 is now perfectly glossy. The bubbles on the porcelain I am unsure of outside of the fact that they had already been fired to cone 10 twice already. The stoneware glazes look vibrant at this temp.
Cone 5 medium speed. Pretty good across the board with this one providing some insight. Not completely sure of the glaze on the plate, but it did leave a corona around it. We had some blue denim drip. I suspect this a factor of gravity and thick application rather than some sort of further issue. I was challenged balancing the manta rays on their designated waxed spots. The wax held them into position until I reached into the kiln. Granted, the kiln is still usually 110 when I start unloading/loading work. Tiny shards of kiln furniture are stuck to the bottom. If you ever encounter this, use a scraper or handle to debur them. They are super sharp! Our Green and Denim are pretty stable, but the white is still acting almost like a Shino. That’s cool, but not what people are going for. I’m running a controlled cone 5 fast test right now to see if that can be sorted and if the blue is blue yet. I’m hoping it’s decanting over time has allowed the mineral saturation to be more evenly distributed. Funny note, that blue becomes really nice after it’s third firing.