We can only do broadcast messages directly from here. To contact a member privately, you need to click their name link or picture icon to go to their profiile page. Once there, in the left column you will see a "Send a Message" link that will open a message editor window.  Once finished, and you click "Send", the message will go to that person's inbox here as well as to their regular email account.

I've gotten into the database a couple of times but my recipes are all in a scribbler right now so I'm working on getting them into a spreadsheet so I can save them as CSV type and upload them.  I tried for a while on one today but will need to do some more research to figure out where I'm going wrong.  I'm working on my windows based laptop as I have a bit of a learning curve to climb before I try my accessing the database with my phone, Mac, or IPad.

I have made the information contained on the pages for this group viewable by the public, so our activities here will show on the cone6pots main page, and be crawlable by searchbots. This will allow more people to be aware of the work being done on Insight-Live and allow more people to join the group.

I tested the batch size feature that Tony added that will recalculate any recipe for whatever total batch size you want. 500 g, 1000, 5000, 7500, 10000.  You can print a mix sheet with all the recalculated amounts.  Very cool!

Work has been sucking up all my time lately. I finally got some new pieces glazed yesterday. I will try to check in tonight. Not sure my account is setup.

I'm having trouble logging into the site. Help...

I logged in last night on my laptop and spend quite a long time browsing recipes.  It was great.  I did try to use the "email" button to send some to myself, but couldn't get that to work.  I'll try browsing again later with my smartphone.

Reply by George Lewter: I don't think the email function for recipes is implemented yet, but you can set a batch size, and print out a mix sheet. All the info for that glaze except the picture print along with it.

Printing works great on Google Chrome. Normally my recipes add up to 100 and then the colorants are additions to that.  In the Insight recipes those colorants worked are worked into the 100%.  So that's different than I'm used to.  Can I enter a recipe directly instead of uploading it?  I thought I saw that somewhere but can't remember.  Maybe I need to re-watch a video to find out how.  This is fun.

Reply by George Lewter: When you add an ingredient there is an "Add" checkbox to the right.  If you check it that ingredient will get listed as an additive rather than part of the base ingredients. So you can have your base equal 100 plus percentages of additives.

Yes, you can manually enter a new recipe. You use the "Add" button at the bottom of the glaze list. A new blank recipe form will appear.  Click edit to put it in edit mode.  Indicate how many ingredient lines you need and you're off.

I found the instructions in the introduction video.  I sure wish I could pause the video so I could take some notes, but it doesn't seem to let me pause, so I'll just have to watch it several times.  I'm a little slow, so bear with me.

Reply by George Lewter: You are doing great. Have no fear.  You might want to use the written help system with specific questions rather than going through the videos multiple times.

OK, so I went in and entered a recipe for Naragon White.  I uploaded a photo and everything.  I even created a new typecode OPQ for opaque. I know I saved it, but now I can't find it.  What did I do wrong?

Reply by George Lewter: Probably nothing since the new typecode is still listed.  Sometimes the typecode list is minimized and out of sight. You just need to expand it. That typecode seems reasonable so we can leave it. In the future we should probably discuss new typecodes before adding them as they could easily get out of hand.

I forgot to give it a title!  Duh!  It's there now and shows up as C6G-1008 Naragon White.  Not sure where that C6G-1008 came from.

Reply by George Lewter: The coding was added automatically when you intentionally or inadvertantly hit the button for it. It is just the next available number code for a cone 6 glaze.  We're asking members to add the numeric code when they work on a glaze or change anything about it. We can tell which ones are unchanged for the duration they have been the system.

It might be good to have a note someplace on the glaze, or a color change to the card, if the poster used the glaze. Posting other persons glazes you have not used does not give us any place go for questions. Perhaps a grouping,  glazes we have used ourselves and glazes not yet tried.

Response by George Lewter:  Any glaze recipe that hasn't been updated or used by one of our members doesn't have the C6G-#### designation in front of it.  Such glazes are either not tested or used by one of us, or we haven't yet gotten to adding our notes and pictures to make it "ours". When you start working on a glaze, use the button to give it a numeric code so we know it has become active. 

Always precede your added notes on someone else's glaze with your name and the date.

I think a lot of glazes undergo a name change when a potter takes and uses them and I just wondered if there is any way to search a glaze and see if there are any glazes with identical ingredients and amounts entered under a different name.  I've inadvertantly done this myself and would be very interested in tracing a recipe back to its source.

Here's a suggestion.  It would be nice if there were a printable instruction sheet, like a PDF.  Step by step instructions.  It's hard to watch the video and remember everything.

Is it intentional that any member can modify/delete anyone's recipes?  Is there a "user folder" that has some protection or just one pool of recipes?

Reply by George Lewter 2/21. As we imported almost 500 glazes as our opening portfolio, and they are not consistently named or documented we are initially leaving them editable by all our members. (except for the recipe ingredient lines and quantities). Hopefully the members will pitch in and work on the recipes to get them to a level of standardization, and then we will lock down the recipes, except that notes will be appendable by third parties and pictures with notes can be also added by third parties so the body of data about a glaze can grow.

For now, one list of glazes that all can add to.  

Someone said below that the videos do not pause, but they do. Your browser should open a panel with a nice frame with controls to position the video where ever you want and pause it.

To answer another question: Yes, you will be able to find glazes under other names that use the same recipe, this will be done by fingerprinting the recipes to recognize duplicates. This is coming.

Also, the help system needs to evolve, it will always be behind recent changes made. I think, in general, if you need to consult the help too much we need to change the design to make it more evident how to do things.

I really like the ability to search by picture!

I am getting close to releasing the variations feature, that is, the ability to define multiple sets additions to a base, each with its own title, codenumber, notes and pictures (each picture can also have its own title and notes). That means you will not have to enter separate recipes to show different colorants in a base, they will all be tobether. This has required quite a few changes and there will be a few wrinkles to iron out.

Search by pictures , that is way cool !

interface colors look good , easy to read

now we need more pictures of glazes

I also have the Level 1 version of INSIGHT on my mac. I am learning so much by taking the Video lessons on the DigitalFire site. I keep a Notebook program open in another window and take very clear notes and also screen shots as I listen to the videos. I pause the video frequently to not miss any of the chemistry that Tony teaches. Thanks so much Tony.

Just made a $178.85 payment to Digital Fire for our group access to Insight-Live glaze recipe database.  Tony at Digital Fire provides the backbone to this great interactive database. It is up to us to flesh it out with: recipes, variations, pictures, notes on our results, techniques, and firing schedules. The more information we add, the more valuable the database becomes. 

 Hi George. Me again. Little history here. All I did in college was cone 10 reduction, handbuilding and pots. When I graduated I switched to cone 6 elc and started doing tile.    A lot of my cone 6 glaze colors are just variations of a couple glaze bases.  You can strip all the colorents out of a glaze and check it's fit and then start adding color back in to it. Glazes with the same base blend together easily. For tile you might need a gradient of blue shades. Kind of like paints or a box of colors. It is a bit different than looking for that one great combination of glazes to put on a pot. So my approach I think is a little different than a potters. About a year ago I fell into the opportunity to have access to a cone ten reduction kiln through my work. So I drug out my old glaze book from college and have been making up test tiles of every glaze in the book, What good is a recipe if you can't see what it looks like? It could have up to 200 glazes in it I have never counted them, I was afraid it would scare me off. I just do three of each of the 11 color chooses and repeat the process. They are all cone 10, maybe a few raku. I test each tile on porcelain, my clay body and the schools claybody. I derived a system that makes them easy to store, access and transport. Handier than a shoebox or a wall hanging. Now that I have insight-live to use I am going to start with the first recipes and start making test tiles of what is in there.  I was about to start setting up the same system for all of my cone six recipes anyway.I can include these along with mine. I hope one of my Grand kids falls in love with clay so I can pass it down someone. I will try to compile a set of picture of what I have so far.  Thank you again for all your work. Happy firing.

Login problems for the group should first be directed to me, as I can edit and update both usernames and passwords. Kathy, I just sent you login info with a new password.  ;-)

Sorry gang, but the Insight-Live Users group is going to get leaner and meaner. 30 day cancellation notices just went out to 35 non-participants (people who never logged-in to our http://Insight-Live.com database, people who only logged-in once or twice and never searched for or posted anything, and people who have showed no activity for a year or more.) 

Get ready for there to be minimum requirements for you to remain a member of this group. We can discuss these requirements and reach some consensus, or I will simply impose what I think is needed. Those of you who are already contributing recipes, notes, and photos need not worry. Those who are not contributing yet, will need to acquire some knowledge about posting information on the database. You can ask your questions here, and we will try to answer them as quickly as possible.

If you have no intention of participating, then please quit now, so I don't have to hunt you down later. 

Wow! It seems that my patience is limited. 

I would really hate to see us give up on the Insight database as I'm using it (not as much as I want to!) and find it very helpful.  I print copies of glazes I use regularly from insight and keep them in a binder in my studio where I can make further notes on them and add those notes back into insight.  I have been adding photos of glazes I use regularly but haven't done as much experimenting as I want to so glaze tests and documentation on new glazes are something I need to get working on.  I have been working with oil spot glazes, especially layering them and wonder if there is a way to add those results to insight?  I have shared results on this network, especially with Jeff Poulter and would really like a collaberative way to share glaze layering results.

Guilty as charged. Sorry George. I got caught up in some cone 10 stuff. I will take some pictures of that work and you can tell me if it is something that you want to add to insight. I did run some test tiles of some cone 6 glazes too but I haven't looked to see if they are in the database or not. I love digitalfire software. happy firing, Kabe

I am in the process of importing 9000 recipes and hundreds of thousands of test data results into another group install. I will be working with this personally and improving Insight-live on desktop and portable devices in the next few months, this is going to lead to some big improvements in the features and user interface.

I am not a frequent user of Insight Live, but I would like to share my experience with it. I should however mention that I use Insight regularly on my own local computer. 

Insight Live has a wonderful bank of recipes. It was this that initially attracted me to the site. I did spend some time exploring various recipes, in an attempt to understand some variations in Tenmoku type glazes. I even intended to contribute photos and comments. However my intentions never really materialised. Part of the reason is the difficulty in making good closeup images which depend so much on the lighting. I am rarely able to get an image to look like the real glaze. So apart from all the other factors that influence the end result of a glaze, the image itself, at least mine, is not very reliable. Nevertheless, this is a technical problem and images do give a general idea of what the glaze might look like.  

My other blockage has more to do with the use of a large bank of recipes. My interest is understanding how glazes work so that I can adjust them to move the end result towards a particular objective. I suspect that there is almost as much work to be done in testing a new given recipe that there is in adjusting a recipe from scratch. So although the large bank of recipes has a wealth of information, from my pratical position, I have found it more productive to start from a basic recipe rather than search for a possible suitable recipe in the bank. This is not to downplay the worth of the bank, nor all the work that has gone in to its creation. However, having explored it a little earlier in the year, I find that I need to go through the process of modifying and testing myself in order to understand the behaviour of a glaze. And for this, a simple recipe is a starting point. In the end, I am convinced that understanding the chemistry and physics of a glaze is important, and for this I know no alternative other than actually doing the testing oneself. And I must admit that getting a glaze to a point where it turns out in a reliable way after each firing is a fairly long process. In practice, each firing gives me something new to mull over. A glaze never seems to be a definitive recipe. But that is just one point of view. 

I hope these comments are constructive. David Booth

I've uploaded the 75 glazes we use in our studio so other studio members can access them without needing to ask me.

I like seeing the different chemistry approaches various people have taken to create similar looking but subtly different glazes.

All of the test tile photos I've uploaded use our studio's very slow-cool after firing, so they look quite different to say an Alisa Clausen photo of the same glaze.

To keep a constant reference, I've photographed all of my test tiles on the bottom of the same particle board tray. I guess that my own inexpensive and less distracting version of a color calibration card.

cheap Particle Board Color Reference

The tile cooled faster was taken on a sunny day, vs a cloudy day for the slower-cooled tile on the right.

an actual Color Reference Chart

Of course there's conundrums like this photo where:

Test Tile A is exactly the same color as Test Tile B - but I'd never guess that.

Previously I could click on an Insight-Live database glaze photo to enlarge it, but that doesn't seem to be the case currently - I don't know if that's temporary, or if it this was done to compact the storage space. I get this error message-

Not Found

The requested URL /var/www/insight-live/uploads/groups/9kg34das5g/recipes/DB-1476.jpg was not found on this server.

I just purchased an electronic controller for my kiln (Vulcan is awesome!) and am ready for a big round of glaze tests. I'm working on larger forms and need some funky glazes to show texture and give them the look I need/want. I went to sign into our group on insight but username and password were rejected. Can you help me with this Tony or George?

Remember to choose the Group Login to log-in to the Cone6Pots Insight Live.

I chose the regular Login once and found no recipes - I had a previous individual account and the browser had saved the details.

What type of electronic controller did you get?

I've done that in the past as well Norm but did remember to use the group log-in to no effect.

I purchased an Orton controller from Vulcan kilns on ebay.  Completed 3 bisque firings already and am very happy with it so far.  Need to get some glaze firings done ASAP as there's a show I want to enter and deadline is the 5th! I'm excited to do a soak at temp and slow down fire; anticipating some cool effects.

Tony is doing most of his social networking on facebook now, with his videos being posted on YouTube. https://www.facebook.com/tony.hansen.3990 You should probably start "following" him there to keep up with what he is doing with Insight-Live. I'm going to embed his video on improving a clear glaze because it clearly demonstrates how to use the power of Insight-Live in working with the chemistry of a glaze to improve its performance. It also shows how to import a recipe right off a web page that you might stumble upon.

I put up 3 new glazes, hope you all like them!

Penny

I have watched the videos but don't really understand how to use Insight Live. For my first project I want to substitute G-200 Old Blend Feldspar for the Custer Feldspar(which I don't have) in the MC6G Licorice (GB2). Below I have entered the original and duplicated it. Now I don't know what to do next. Also, why is the cost showing as $1,197.50 a pound? Seems a little pricy. Now that I have my kiln and raw materials I want to get going but this group seems to have fizzled out before I got here. Would love to take part in a class for glazing and using Insight Live. Thanks for any help or suggestions of how to proceed. 

Darthe, looking at your recipe subbing g-200, it raised your expansion. To get the expansion lower, which would help prevent crazing, particularly if you are glazing porcelain or some white stonewares, you might reduce the whiting a bit and up the talc. The magnesia and silica in the talc will bring the expansion down Then if you want to keep the alumina silica ratio the same, you can lower the silica a hair and up and up the clay a bit to make the recipe be closer to the original. Seems like something is very amiss with the cost. Unfortunately, I can't get into the site with the temporary user name and password George gave me yesterday. If George gets back to me with a fix for that, maybe I can get in there and check out the software. I've been using Insight since the early day when it was on a 5" floppy, so I may be able to see what the problem is.  In the meantime, you can write to Tony and ask him about the cost problem. He should be able to clarify that for you.

Hi June, thanks for your response. I posted this question in the Facebook Ceramic Recipes group and Tony answered a bit. Apparently I had added the G-200 to my materials and it was not configured correctly. I typed in G-200 Feldspar Old Blend, but the correct way is G200 Old Blend Feldspar. The screen shot is from my own account at Insight and not in the group area. So here is how the comparison looks now.  The two sets of numbers are much closer. But I don't know if The Silica Alumina ratio is ok. It was 10.2:1 with Custer and with Old Blend it is 9.9:1. Is that a lot of difference or a little. I need to watch the videos again. I wish there was a class.

There is a new group login page at Insight-Live that will help eliminate most sign-in errors. 

Save this group sign-in page as a favorite, and you can get into our group database in just two clicks. http://insight-live.com/grouplogin.php

I'll try out Skype for the first time on Thursday if there's a space left.

Now that we know how "Our Typecodes" work, from tonight's Skype Conference,I made some changes which I think will work better. Example changing Cone 6 Glaze Reduction to three different codes C6 G RX

Each Typecode can be one, two or three letters.  As you might expect, the Insight-Live software doesn't care what order you enter attributes, just so long as there's exactly one space between each Typecode.

Comments? Suggestions?  Before we get too far . . .

Creating a chemically identical glaze is like solving a crossword puzzle.

We don't have Volcanic Ash in stock, so replaced it with other ingredients.

Sorry if I am missing this from somewhere else, I have a question. Did someone take notes or minutes from the Early March type-code skype session? I'm about to input some things that I have useful data on and want to do so properly.

Thanks in advance.

Andrea

If you think we should have codes for glaze attributes beyond what currently exists, please suggest and explain.

These are the current codes available on the left-hand side of the database page under the pink colored tab titled "Our Typecodes"

There needs to exactly one space between each code you enter in the glaze recipe, otherwise Insight-Live doesn't recognize them.

Only after you have uploaded a photo of your test tile or work as an example you can click to "auto-number" the entry as:

C6G - glaze

C6S - slip

C6B - clay body

Clearly the C6 portion is a reference to "Cone 6", but this is overly specific as the database contains recipes for glazes and slips of other cone maturities as well.