Lili Krakowski on wed 31 aug 05
Yes, in a school situation, I have weighed out a whole year's supply of a
glaze , kilo by kilo, put in brown paper bags and into plastic bags. BUT
THEY WERE NOT MIXED OR BLENDED. JUST WEIGHED OUT.
Dry mixing--mixing the ingredients dry--is dangerously absurd. You do NOT
get a good blend, unless, as has been said, you have very good special
equipment, and you create dust you do not need. Lung disease consumes much
more time than wet sieving.
From the original message I gather that the idea of wet mixing is
unappealing and considered too time consuming. WHAT is so time consuming?
You weigh out your ingredients and ease them into a lot of water. You let
the thing sit overnight, pref. longer. You stir with a large spoon or
similar. Let sit some more. If there is a lot of excess water, get off
with turkey baster or large rubber syringe. You then sieve.
Yes, if you go in for fancy small sieves it will take a good deal of time.
Make yourself a few sieves with fiberglass window screen for first sievings,
and nylon, from a "paint sock" (bought at any paint supply store) to sieve
twice more. All set.
As these home built screens/sieves cost little you can make them quite big.
I use 10" or bigger even white plastic pipe, or I make frames out of 4x1
wood. One does not need to sieve into the 5 gallon storage pail; one can
use a large restaurant style dishpan, or similar. GREAT are old sinks....
And I use a nylon brush from Lee Valley--they call them surgeon's brushes,
they are very cheap, soft, with nice round tipped bristles. A soft nylon
hairbrush without handle also is good....Scrubs the glaze through quickly.
And no not related to Lee Valley, etc.
Lili Krakowski
Be of good courage
David Hendley on wed 31 aug 05
Dry mixing glazes is a perfectly reasonable and safe technique.
It is not done because the idea of wet mixing is unappealing.
It is not done as an alternative to wet mixing, but to save time
in measuring and weighing dry ingredients. Any technique which
reduces the time spent measuring and pouring dry ceramic materials
results in a net reduction of harmful dust created.
For example:
Lezlie wants to do it because she wants to mix up only small quantizes
of raku glaze, because the wetted glazes deteriorate over time. It
saves time to dry mix one large batch and then wet mix a portion
when fresh glaze is needed. The alternative would be to start over
and weigh out and combine materials for every glazing cycle.
I do it because I want to use the same base glaze for several colors.
I can dry mix one large batch of the base glaze and then add a colorant
and wet mix. The alternative would be to repeatedly mix the same
recipe time after time, resulting in hours of extra weighing and
dust creation.
I also do it to thoroughly disperse "problem ingredients" such as
bentonite and soda ash, which have undesirable properties when added
straight to water.
I also dry mix my "Albany slip substitute", my Redart-clay-based
substitute for Albany slip. When a recipe calls for Albany slip, the
substitute is a direct 1-to-1 substitution.
No dust is created if the ingredients are put in a sealed container for
mixing, such as rolling a sealed bucket around (The bucket should be
allowed to rest for a while to allow the dust inside to settle). The mixing
may not be 100% complete, but it is close enough to work fine.
David Hendley
I don't know nothin' but the blues, cobalt that is.
david@farmpots.com
http://www.farmpots.com
----- Original Message -----
> Yes, in a school situation, I have weighed out a whole year's supply of a
> glaze , kilo by kilo, put in brown paper bags and into plastic bags. BUT
> THEY WERE NOT MIXED OR BLENDED. JUST WEIGHED OUT.
>
> Dry mixing--mixing the ingredients dry--is dangerously absurd. You do NOT
> get a good blend, unless, as has been said, you have very good special
> equipment, and you create dust you do not need. Lung disease consumes
> much
> more time than wet sieving.
>
> From the original message I gather that the idea of wet mixing is
> unappealing and considered too time consuming. WHAT is so time consuming?
> You weigh out your ingredients and ease them into a lot of water. You let
> the thing sit overnight, pref. longer. You stir with a large spoon or
> similar. Let sit some more. If there is a lot of excess water, get off
> with turkey baster or large rubber syringe. You then sieve.
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