Did a little experiment with Red Lead Cone 04 glaze. I'll have to see if I can replicate it with Bismuth Oxide which is $35 a pound vs $6, but not toxic.

From the left, just lead glaze, Manganese (trying to get a gold), Cobalt, Copper, Chrome, Nickel

There's so much nickel in the last tile I had to fire it to Cone 5 to melt it.…

Silicosis killing thousands in quarries across India - Indian Express - Asia Times…

What I need now is a device which prevents studio members from dropping tools and valuable extruder parts in our washing tub which collects clay and heavy metals from glaze for disposal.

Going through the muck prior to disposal is always a treasure hunt.

Never Misplace a Tool Again!

by  …

A year ago I watched this video of the UK ceramicist Takeshi Yasuda working in the porcelain city of Jingdezhen China.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MSxEAekY1U

As amazing as it was to see those workshops in action, I now learn that virtually all of the ceramic…

I was very informed about ceramics by a sections of Josiah Wedgewood's Kiln Journal written while developing their original Jasperware, "Trial 136 Success!"  It's sad to see this.

Stoke museum's collection of pioneering potter, described as 'unparalleled' by Unesco, due to be sold to meet pension debts.

Wedgwood plates from the series Variation…

"Wired" magazine has an interesting article on the new way to throw or sculpt clay, featuring Dutch artist Oliver van Herpt.

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/a-huge-clay-filled-robot-that-replaces-the-potters-wheel/#slide-id-1413601…

There are many uses for changing the cooling speed of ceramic glass.

http://www.wired.com/2014/07/material-science-flexible-display/



In new PCM displays, the inner material is a substance made of silicon’s heavier chemical cousins, germanium, antimony, and tellurium. The two states of this material, known as GST, are actually two different phases of matter: one an ordered crystal and the other a…

Has anyone used this type of flexible PBI / Kevlar blend glove?

http://www.superiorglove.com/extreme-dragon-pbi-kevlar-high-heat-gloves

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BHMATOW

We've used a typical pair of yellow Kevlar gloves with wool lining to unload hot kiln shelves,…

The tile below is the way I used to seeing rutile react in a glaze.

We have a new bag of "Light Rutile" from Laguna which means it's calcined.  Unfortunately it leaves glazes opaque and uniformly whitened, as if we had added titanium dioxide.

The mesh of this new tan rutile is supposedly the same as dark rutile, so I'm at a loss to explain the profound difference.  Unfortunately rutile is a natural material, so some variation can be expected, but this is far too…

Many have tried to duplicate Alisa Clausen's test tile of Cassie's Marsala without success.

After making a chemically identical version which was opaque from excess iron, I've made a chemically identical version without the addition of 6.6% red iron oxide.

At this point I'm confident that Alisa Clausen replaced the high-iron American produced Redart Clay with a substitute containing less iron.…

''A lot of his friends didn't get it,'' admits Mandy Walker of her father's collection of contemporary ceramics. Her father was Professor Alan Walker, the celebrated biophysicist from the University of Sydney whose special interest was plant membrane transport. He died in October 2013.

Walker was a man of many passions, including art (especially Monet and Cezanne), music (Haydn), sailing and photography, although his love of ceramics may have been lost on some.…

Has anyone previously used Laguna WC-391 B-3 Brown Clay?

We bought one box to try out and the first person to use this clay made a slab construction of  about 3/8 inches thick.

This clay bloated in a Cone 6 firing, due to some part of the clay that is off-gassing.  The ware was previously bisque fired to Cone 04 and had a thin layer of clear glaze on it.…

Scrap

I had to share this photo I found on a crystalline glaze forum. Someone using a Cress-modified Bartlett V6-CF controller to fire a 96 amp Skutt kiln, after the original controller burnt to a crisp.

http://s3.excoboard.com/crystal/64484/1057100

"the kiln draws 89Amps so the Bartlett controller will not handle that much current, but is more then sufficient to drive a…

Magruder Red on the right.

On the left, the 26.4 grams of Silica in Magruder Red was replaced with 61 grams of hydrated Aluminum Phosphate.

The recipe for Aluminum Phosphate and this Magruder Red variation is in the Insight-Live Glaze Database under Magruder Red.…

Last year we searched for "Glaze Crystals" for a granite look or other crystal glazes and found the industry supplier in Maryland.  They melt into larger patterns at ^6, pictured below at ^06.

Tangerine glaze crystals in a yellow mason stain glaze are shown below inside a "Chippendale furniture" looking piece I made using porcelain over paper-clay so the porcelain cracks.…

Vee's Tenmoku Gold fired to Cone 6 then cooled, between 1,800F and 1,500F, at 185F per hour on the left, 100F in the middle, and 50F on the right.

Has anyone come close to the look of Alisa Clausen's ^6 "Cassie's Marsala" where she uses MOK-623 frit?

56.6 Red Art Clay

20.0 Frit 169/MOK 623

9.4  Nepheline Syenite

9.4  Talc

5.7  Bone Ash

6.6  Iron Oxide-Red

Using the analysis for the Johnson Matthey Frit 623 I made a chemically similar glaze, but it's missing the glassy look produced by a pre-melted frit.…