mel jacobson on sat 20 sep 03
i think that the attempt to control
the total experience in clay is a good one.
making simple glazes is not chemistry, it is baking.
just follow the recipe, weight out the chemicals
experiment.
there are so many recipes out there, for any temp.
just try.
it is not complex.
when you see pots that you love from other potters, ask
about the glaze, see if they will share the recipe.
there are many steps to being a clay person. many.
it is good to be involved in all of them.
it does not mean getting a ph.d. in chemistry or physics.
i like the variety of making, testing, trying, firing, kiln building.
some potters are makers.
some potters are chemists and testers
some potters are fire eaters.
the potters that i admire, do it all pretty well.
it just takes courage.
when i started i did not know that flint, silica and quartz were
the same thing.
i did not know that calcium carbonate was whiting.
i had never seen a soft brick when i built my first soft brick kiln.
i just ordered them, built the kiln from a simple plan.
it worked just fine. frightened the pee out of me though.
i got over it.
the hardest thing to get over when making glaze, in my opinion
is...`it has to be perfect`. some inside feeling that you are not
going to get every gram in place. that is not how it works.
i use pounds. a grocery scale. get it sorta right. close.
i used to joke about being in dubai and measuring glazes with an
old coffee can and some sea shells. just don't mix up the sea shells
as they are your oxide measuring tools.
here is the recipe:
6 coffee cans of volcanic ash
4 coffee cans of gertsley borate
3 sea shells of copper
1 sea shell of cobalt
4 no 2 shells of zircopax.
nice, cone 5 blue green glaze. worked every time.
got the glaze `idea` from richard beherens. he talked a great
deal about glaze ideas. not formula. i like that attitude. changed
my life and i never looked back.
as a teacher i discovered that most of my budget went to glaze.
so i made it myself...50 gallons at a time. cost at the time, 15 bucks.
so, get after it. enjoy the total experience. make pots, fire them,
make glaze, test it, then find one you love, use it, then when you
get really confident, make a kiln.
mel
From:
Minnetonka, Minnesota, U.S.A.
web site: my.pclink.com/~melpots
or try: http://www.pclink.com/melpots
new/ http://www.rid-a-tick.com
Hank Murrow on sun 21 sep 03
On Sunday, September 21, 2003, at 06:56 PM, karen gringhuis wrote:
> Mel says......
>
>> the hardest thing to get over when making glaze, in
> my opinion is...`it has to be perfect`. some inside
> feeling that you are not going to get every gram in
> place. that is not how it works. i use pounds. a
> grocery scale. get it sorta right. close.
And Hank chimes in from Eugene, suggesting that a dairy scale, which
goes to thirty pounds, and reads in tenths of pounds, allowing you to
take percentage amounts directly without converting to
ozs..........will make everything much easier.
Cheers, from the Pacific Ocean, where I am kicking back........
karen gringhuis on sun 21 sep 03
Mel says......
>the hardest thing to get over when making glaze, in
my opinion is...`it has to be perfect`. some inside
feeling that you are not going to get every gram in
place. that is not how it works. i use pounds. a
grocery scale. get it sorta right. close.<
This is why base glaze recipes with numbers to the
RIGHT of the decimal point drive me nuts. It elicits
some startled looks but my favorite expression is
"Don't worry about it - you'll screw it up more than
THAT in the firing!"
=====
Karen Gringhuis
KG Pottery
Box 607 Alfred NY 14802
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Susan Setley on sun 21 sep 03
In a message dated 9/21/03 9:01:56 PM, kgringhuis@YAHOO.COM writes:
<< Mel says......
>the hardest thing to get over when making glaze, in
my opinion is...`it has to be perfect`. some inside
feeling that you are not going to get every gram in
place. that is not how it works. i use pounds. a
grocery scale. get it sorta right. close.<
This is why base glaze recipes with numbers to the
RIGHT of the decimal point drive me nuts. It elicits
some startled looks but my favorite expression is
"Don't worry about it - you'll screw it up more than
THAT in the firing!"
>>
A friend and I were mixing a glaze from a recipe the other day. The recipe
was for 100 grams.
It called for
.05 grams
of cobalt carbonate.
Now I'll admit that a little cobalt can go a very long way but ...
Fortunately we were enlarging the recipe. :)
| |
|
