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jeanie's purple--is it hard to make your own glazes?

updated tue 25 jul 06

 

Dave Finkelnburg on mon 24 jul 06


Val,
If you have wrestled handbuilding and molds into
submission, you can make your own glazes. You will
have the best luck, and learn the fastest, if you
study the subject...rather than simply working from
someone else's recipes. By that, I mean use recipes
to start, but study them...why the ingredients they
contain are used, etc. You will find glaze making is
a very liberating part of the creative process.
First, there is no single book that is best for
starting out to learn about glazes. No one really
covers all you need to know to get started. Clayart
is the only resource I am aware of that has all you
need...and it's necessarily a bit hit and miss. :-)
Second, it will help a lot to narrow your glaze
focus to a specific temperature, clay body, and
surface (matt, glossy, satin...) and process (Raku,
single-fire, wood, electric, gas reduction, etc).
Finally, plan to make a lot of test tiles and then
fire a lot of glaze tests. It is very reasonable to
fire entire kiln loads of glaze tests if you really
want to understand your clay and glazes. The learning
curve is steep at first, but it soon flattens out to a
slope moderate enough to manage but steep enough to be
challenging for the rest of your life! :-)
Good glazing,
Dave Finkelnburg, who stands up in meetings
and says, "I am a glaze addict. It has been several
minutes since I last thought about a new glaze
recipe..."

--- val wrote:
> Is it hard to make your own glazes?


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val on mon 24 jul 06


Hi Dave,
Thank you very much for the information....I plan to
try this and will keep you informed of my
Success, LOL...if I have any....
Thanks again
Val



Val,
If you have wrestled handbuilding and molds into
submission, you can make your own glazes. You will
have the best luck, and learn the fastest, if you study
the subject...rather than simply working from someone
else's recipes. By that, I mean use recipes to start,
but study them...why the ingredients they contain are
used, etc. You will find glaze making is a very
liberating part of the creative process.
First, there is no single book that is best for
starting out to learn about glazes. No one really
covers all you need to know to get started. Clayart
is the only resource I am aware of that has all you
need...and it's necessarily a bit hit and miss. :-)
Second, it will help a lot to narrow your glaze
focus to a specific temperature, clay body, and
surface (matt, glossy, satin...) and process (Raku,
single-fire, wood, electric, gas reduction, etc).
Finally, plan to make a lot of test tiles and then
fire a lot of glaze tests. It is very reasonable to
fire entire kiln loads of glaze tests if you really
want to understand your clay and glazes. The learning
curve is steep at first, but it soon flattens out to a
slope moderate enough to manage but steep enough to be
challenging for the rest of your life! :-)
Good glazing,
Dave Finkelnburg, who stands up in meetings
and says, "I am a glaze addict. It has been several
minutes since I last thought about a new glaze
recipe..."

--- val wrote:
> Is it hard to make your own glazes?


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Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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