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gerstley-less floating blue & thanks!

updated thu 17 aug 00

 

Vikki Dow on wed 16 aug 00


Thanks again to everyone who replied to my electrical problems posts. The =
owner of the company
had the electrician come back and put in the copper wire he should have put=
in in the first
place, as well as the 60 amp breaker he should have installed. The electri=
cian grumbled and
insisted that the aluminum wire wasn't the problem - he insisted that the k=
iln was just drawing
too much, but he put in the copper wire, and now it's working like a charm=
. Thanks so much to
all of you who taught me about electrical needs of our kilns and gave me th=
e knowledge I needed
to get the job done right. By the way, we did call Skutt and they told us =
the same thing you
all did (get rid of the aluminum wire!).

I've read up on substituting gerstley borate (thanks Tony Hansen for your g=
reat info on
DigitalFIre), and have been busy reformulating our glazes using Hyperglaze.=
While I was at it,
I reformulated the ever-popular Floating Blue, which we've always meant to =
try and never got
around to. Anyway, here is my reformulated recipe for a Gerstley-less Flo=
ating Blue. I tested
it on ^5 B-Mix (Laguna), and it came out great - blue over hare's fur. A l=
ittle more Hare's Fur
and a little less blue than we really hoped for, but we think we let it get=
too fired (SLOW
fired in oxidation to ^6, 2232=BAF).

Floating Blue Cady ^6 ox

nepheline syenite 50.25
cadycal 11.00
silica 20.25
frit 3134 12.00
epk 5.00
whiting 1.50


Also add
red iron oxide 2.00
cobalt carbonate 1.00
rutile 4.00
bentonite 2.00


--
Vikki Dow
Portland, OR

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