Monday, October 12, 2009

Test Glazes

After months of procrastinating I finally made up batches of test glaze. All glazes are cone 10 reduction glazes and are best fired using the R1 firing profile in John Britt's book The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glazes. The glazes I will be testing are:

  1. Malcolm's Shino
  2. John's Red
  3. Rutile Blue 1
  4. Winnie Blue
  5. Choy Celedon
  6. Penn State Shino
  7. Leach Clear
  8. Ice Trap Celedon
  9. Hamada Temmoku
  10. St. John's Black
  11. Tilton Gator Skin
  12. Hanna's Fake Ash
  13. Haynes White
Here is a picture of my scale and empty cups on the new table:


The scale at work:


All the glazes have been mixed and the cups sealed:


I need to fire at least one more bisque load (in the electric kiln) before I'm ready to fire the gas kiln. Trying to find a day on the weekend to fire it has been challenging. This weekend I will be attending a workshop at St. Pete Clay with Elmer Taylor. The workshop is a throwing and trimming workshop with concentration on lids, spouts, and handles. I'm missing the Florida Gators football game vs. Arkansas to attend this workshop. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I must love throwing pots...because I don't miss Gator football games!!!

Just a quick note before I sign off - I've been captivated lately by soda firing. I've looked at a lot of soda fired pots online and I find myself amazed by the colores and textures. I'm starting to educate myself on the soda firing process. In addition to testing the glazes above I am contemplating mixing some slips and having them fired in the soda kiln at Atlantic Pottery Supply in Jacksonville (about an hour and a half away). More to come...

Goodnight!

2 comments:

Bekah said...

i have been searching for people's success with john's red--i tested eight glazes from john britt's book just a month ago in a wood/soda fire. because i had a wonderfully successful reduction in that woodkiln last semester, i (being a naive and learning student) expected reduction in this last firing. i reached temperature sooner than planned, and overall it was shorter--with no reduction. john's red showed a few tiny streaks of red in one area out of the whole kiln (test tiles with john's red were in five places in the kiln). i'm curious as to whether you've fired it yet, and what results you got? on my test tiles, JR was white or pale green, with one tiny area of red streaks.
i'm woodfiring again this weekend, praying for reduction and planning to fire for at least 24 hours (as i did last semester). i'm trying to figure out if i should risk putting JR in some pots. let me know what you discover with this potentially-great looking glaze!

Mike said...

My John's Red test on porcelain turned out great! I was able to get good reduction during my firing. I can't say how much having the oxyprobe helped. Those devices are well worth the money!