Recently I’ve been preparing to mix my own glazes. I started stockpiling chemicals and raw materials last summer when a Laguna distributor in Michigan had a sale. Over Christmas I got a few books about glazes including Mastering Cone 6 Glazes and The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glazes. I looked through the recipes in these books and some that I found on the internet and drew up a list of raw materials that I needed to start testing recipes. Then I did some price checking for some online clay and chemical suppliers. (The pottery supply search helped!) My budget was about $100 and I came up with two places to order from.
us pigment chemicals
The first order I placed was at US Pigment. They generally had the best or near the best prices for each raw material. The website and order form were simple and easy to use. The only drawback was that they require a 1 lb. minimum for every chemical. This is only a minor issue when it comes to the more expensive chemicals. For example, I needed some Cobalt Carbonate which is $25 per pound. I didn’t really want to buy a whole pound until I was sure that I would use it eventually. There were also a few chemicals I needed that weren’t listed on their site.
seattle pottery supply chemicals
So I also placed an order at Seattle Pottery Supply. Their website is a little awkward to use at first but I got it figured out. They offered many chemicals in 1/4 and 1/2 pound increments which cost more “per pound” but allowed me to try more chemicals and keep the total within my budget. At first I ordered 4 chemicals. The next day someone called while I was at school. They wanted to tell me that I could fit a few more pounds of materials in the box without increasing the shipping price. I thought that was a pretty nice thing to do since I wasn’t in a hurry to get my order. So after playing phone tag for a day or two I finally added more to my order.
The total order from US Pigment was 12 chemicals (12 lbs) for $46 including $12 for shipping. The total from Seattle Pottery Supply was 10 chemicals (8 lbs.) for $49.90 including $12.95 for shipping.
Next Project: find/build some kind of shelves/drawers/containers to hold all these chemicals.