John Post on sat 15 jan 00
Some thoughts on the Gerstley Borate issue...
Those who fire raku and cone 6 glazes will feel the impact the most. Those
who fire at cone 10 have little need for GB.
I bet there are lots of cone 6er's out there who aren't going to be happy
campers when their supply of GB runs out. So why let it run out? Since
the stuff is still around and plentiful why not stock up on it. Drink all
that water and eat all those canned sardines you bought for Y2K and then
put your stash of Gerstley Borate into your emergency underground bunker
instead.
(One pound = 453.6 grams)
A 50# bag of GB works out as such- 453.6 x 50 = 22,680 grams.
So lets say that you normally make up your glaze in 10,000 gram batches to
fit into a five gallon bucket. If your recipe calls for 10% GB, that means
you need 1000 grams of GB in the bucket. At that rate one 50# bag would
make 22.6 buckets of glaze. If your glaze calls for 20% GB then a 50# bag
will make 11.3 buckets of glaze. and so on....
Now the tricky part...
1. Determine how much longer you plan on living, breathing and making pots
on the planet.
2. Determine how many 5 gallon buckets of glaze you will need to glaze all
those pots.
3. Do the math.
4. Buy the Gerstley.
...of course some will find it much more fun to whine about the
disappearance of GB. Just look at how much those who miss Albany slip like
to whine about that.
I do think that GB has some qualities that cannot be duplicated by frits.
After all a frit is a carefully measured ingredient produced by man,
whereas mother nature cooked up the infinitely variable and wonderfully
unpredictable Gerstley Borate.
I also think that appealing, reliable glazes can be made without GB...but
I'm just not going to give up having some of my favorite glazes simply
because the mine is closing down.
I'm off to order a truckload of GB.................when the supply runs out
and the panic starts, this may not seem as nuts as it sounds...
John Post
Sterling Heights, Michigan
rp1mrvl@moa.net
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