LOGAN OPLINGER on thu 21 mar 02
Hello Jennifer,
Please do not take this as a direct attack on you, but I get quite upset with people who use sieves incorrectly. Please, DO NOT TRY TO FORCE the particles of "residue" through the sieve. This will deform the wire mesh, making some of the openings larger, thus defeating the purpose the sieve, to control the size of particles that pass through. Rather, either use the flat of your hand and rub with VERY LIGHT PRESSURE, ALMOST NONE, if the sieve diameter is large enough, or best, use a brush with medium soft bristles (a polyester/nylon paint brush) and "paint" the glaze through using a swirling motion on the sieve. This works with both dry powders and wet slurries.
For your particular glazes, you are being asked to sieve them to insure that there are no lumps of unmixed glaze in the slurry. Letting the glaze sit overnight can help insure that all of the glaze is evenly wetted. The "residue" may either be 1.) lumps of thick wet glaze which can be sprayed with water and brushed through the sieve; 2.) larger particles of glaze material that were not properly ground to the correct fineness at the manufacturing plant, or; 3.) if the glazes are meant to produce varied color or texture, the larger particles are intentional and should be recombined with the glaze that has been sieved. Contact your supplier and ask them about this.
To continue the process of sieving, when you have finished wet sieving your glazes, wash whatever you can through the sieve with a spray of water, but not too much to make the glaze too thin. Any residue can be washed off by inverting the sieve over a pan and spraying from the reverse or bottom side, collecting the washings in the pan.
ANY PARTICLES WHICH REMAIN CAUGHT IN THE SIEVE MUST NOT BE POKED THROUGH. This will also deform the wires. Again, use the brush from the reverse side of the sieve and brush the particles through. Also, when the sieve is dry, tapping the sides of the sieve forcefully will help knock trapped particles out.
Jennifer, I wish you the best of luck in your work. We all start as novices, and I still consider myself to be one.
Logan Oplinger
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You wrote....
>I'm a novice at clay and am mixing my first batch of commercial glazes. I've followed the directions on the bags of glaze powder to mix it 1:1 by weight with water, and then put the resulting mixture through an 80 mesh sieve. However, I'm finding a *lot* of almost granular residue at the bottom of the sieve when the liquid has drained through. Should I be pressing all this "sludge" through the mesh? Should I throw it out? Should I be letting the mixture sit overnight before straining it in the hope that more of the solids will be dissolved? Can anyone give me
some advice?<
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