Steven's Glazes - Tested at Cone 6

[George Lewter]

Is anyone testing some or all of Steven's cone 10 glazes at Cone 6. If so, can you let us know about the results with close up pictures and firing details?

 

So, CM?!. Can you share any details with us?  Are the glazes all formulated the same as they were in his handouts, or has he made flux adjustments for the lower firing temperatures?  What kind of firing schedule are you using?  Are you also firing the gas kiln to cone 6?

 

I asked Steven a year ago if we could publish the Glaze recipes here, but never got an answer, so we've just referred our members to Lakeside Pottery where the recipes are online, but it would be nice to have them right here. 

[George Lewter]

I just found a number of Steven's glazes listed at the Michigan Ceramics Association Website as being for cones 6-9. This reinforces the idea that we should test them at Cone 6.

[George Lewter]

Versions of most of Steven's glazes are in the glazes list at Lakeside Pottery. They are again listed as being cone 6-9. There are notes with several of them. I didn't check them for conformance to the proportions that he gave us. I am currently researching an online database that we can use to post and look at recipes.

[Robert Young]

That sounds great George!

[George Lewter]

My firing of yesterday had the two water color glazes - blue and green. Both came out looking quite good as highly glossy semi transparent glazes without defects, though quite runny as expected.

As you can see there is the green, the blue, and on the rightmost tile, I layered blue over green. These were tiles I glazed at the workshop and then fired at home. The cone position was cone 6 down and cone 7 at 4 o'clock. Will have another firing later this week with more glazes mixed at home.

[George Lewter]

I just saw this pitcher on Eric Preece's member page blog and had to copy it over here. It is with a version of SCM he's been tweaking. The upper portion reminds me of some famous potter, but the lower portion is something I haven't seen before -- quite beautiful.

[George Lewter]

I fired on Saturday. Some glazes were mixed at the last minute and went into the top of my kiln which runs cooler than the rest of the kiln. The top shelf only went to cone 5 down and 6 at 2 o'clock. This was definitely too cool for 2-D blue, which wasn't fully melted. I would say it is probably the lower limit for Strontium Crystal Magic and Jen's Juicy Fruit as well.

Other tiles were lower in the kiln and matured better. 2-D Blue came out a velvety smooth very even pale green. Hannah's Fake Ash Blue was developing some leggy rivulets, as desired though it was going brown wherever it got the least bit thick.

[George Lewter]

I committed some of Steven's glazes to good pots and fired them in a load that varied between cone 5.2 and 7. The results were quite satisfying and I see no reason not to continue using them on a regular basis. I used SCM both white and orange flavors. Hannah's fake ash plain and blue (I never got the recipe for the green which is my favorite --- Help me out here, people). Spotted black which seems to have given me some trouble with rough surface texture and small black chunks unmelted in mix (impure yellow iron oxide?) I also used 2-D Blue. Here are pictures of my pots. Larger versions are on my profile page.

[George Lewter]

Lakeside Pottery has most of the Steven Hill glazes. I got them from workshop materials he handed out. I've not gotten permission to republish them here, so I won't.

The ones we used in the workshop and are talking about here are: Strontium Crystal Magic, Hannah's Fake Ash (brown and blue), 2-D blue, watercolor green and blue, Spotted black, Pier black, Cornell Iron Saturate. Pier Black was used as a liner glaze by itself. The fake ash glazes need to be used alone to maintain their characteristic legs or rivulets, though they can flow down onto other glazes. Strontium Crystal Magic is a base over which you can spray the remaining glazes more thinly as modifiers. The watercolor glazes will strongly promote running. 2-D blue will form crystals over SCM, Pier black, and Cornel IS will promote orange over SCM.

[George Lewter]

I've not tested Pier Black at cone 6 yet. When you say it is very matte, I'm assuming that you are meaning that it is not melting completely. If that is the case then it likely has a rough surface. Not everyone understands that a true matte is not an incompletely melted glaze, but a glaze that has completely melted and then in the cooling phase formed thousands of micro-crystals that break up the surface reflections that are characteristic of a glossy glaze. Can you reply with a close-up photo of your cone 6 Pier Black?

[George Lewter]

My pictures and testing so far have all been with the original formulations fired to cone 5.2-7.2 (I get about 2 cones of variation in my kiln in a firing.) 5.2 is too cool for most of the glazes.

[Mary Jane]

I recently attended a Steven Hill workshop and fired the work to cone 7 with the prescribed hold. I used cone 10 b-mix on some and porcelain on other pieces. In testing for seepage, all of the porcelain performed well but the b-mix pieces had some seepage except for the ones with white liner. I am curious as to other people's experience. It is difficult with clay bodies that are not intended to mature at cone 7. What has been your experience?

Also, have you been able to successfully tweak the glazes to cone 5-6? What clay do you use at that cone given the hold time? Have you tested for seepage and have you had any bloating problems using a cone 5 clay?

Thx, MJ

[George Lewter]

I've not seen the term "seepage" used in pottery so I'm not sure what you are referring to. The clay I've used so far with Steven's glazes is Laguna's B-mix 5 clay. It seems to be ok up to cone 8, but I don't have a lot of experience with it. I have a test in my next firing to try adjusting SCM for orange down to cone six-seven. (Holding at the temp where cone 6 falls until cone 7 falls). So far I've only noted bloating on a few pieces that I tried to single fire, and believe the bloating occurred due the rewetting of bone dry clay rather than due to glaze/body interactions in firing. Steven did mention in the workshop I attended that he formerly used b-mix10, until the bloating issue caused him to change to the porcelain he currently uses.