Dorie Mickelson on thu 10 jun 04
Well, I am not a sage old potter but I am a potter and here is my
opinion. A Talisman rotary sieve and Jiffy mixer (both of which I own
and love) serve two different functions. The Talisman rotary sieve
sieves the glaze and (IMHO) is a gazillion times better than
painstakingly pushing the glaze through a regular sieve with a brush or
kidney (which I did up until very recently when my partner bought me the
Talisman sieve as a birthday present -- yahoo!). When I first make a
glaze batch, I weigh out my dry glaze ingredients, add water, stir, let
the glaze sit for a day, mix it up with my Jiffy Mixer, and then run it
all through my Talisman sieve (using an 80 or 100 mesh screen), which is
very easy and very fast compared to hand sieving. The sieve breaks up
any chunks of dry material still in the glaze and gives me the fine
consistency I want in my glazes. Mixing, even with a Jiffy mixer, does
not replace sieving. Once a glaze is sieved, however, I then use my
Jiffy mixer each time I use that glaze to stir it up so that the
chemicals are all in suspension before dipping my pot into it.
You can sieve manually (sieve screen and rubber kidney, spatula, brush,
etc.) or use a tool to help (such as the Talisman) and you can mix
manually (big whisk or toilet brush or some other mixing aid) or use a
power tool (such as the Jiffy mixer) to help but you do need to do both.
Sieve and mix. Sieve when you first mix up your batch of glaze (or
double sieve, as some potters do) and mix every time you use your glaze.
At least that's what I was taught. Other potters may have other
methods. Personally, I would not want to do without my Jiffy mixer OR
my Talisman, so I don't know how you would choose between them, but
unless you are making new glaze batches very frequently, you will need
to mix your glazes a lot more often than you will need to sieve them.
But if you really hate hand sieving and don't mind hand mixing so much,
then that may help you decide also.
Good luck!
Dorie in Ann Arbor, MI, where it is cloudy and threatening to rain again
and my pots are taking forever to dry!
seeking advice from the sage old potters out there. I'm setting up a new
studio and have mixed enough 5 gallon buckets of glaze to realize I
really don't like using my manual sieve and brush. There seem to be two
(or more?) higher tech means of sieving glazes. Jiffy mixers attached to
a drill and Talisman rotary sieves. If I were to only get one, which
one would y'all recommend, in your infinite wisdom and experience?>
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