Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

Mixing Glaze

Hooray for Spring Break! Last night we made a trip to our top tourist destination: Goshen, IN. So now I’ve got the rest of break to get some work done. I’m mixing glaze today. I hope to mix up some test batches from some of my glaze books in the next few days and fire the kiln before Saturday.

Mixing Glaze

Mixing Glaze

I bought 10lbs. of Coyote’s Sapphire Blue in powder form and I just mixed that. I’ll let it sit until tomorrow and then glaze some mugs. The Sapphire Blue is pretty smooth. I used exactly 2 gallons of water with the 10lbs. of powder which put it at about 1360 on my homemade hydrometer which is where I like my two previous dipping glazes. I’ll probably add a little more water tomorrow because I don’t want it too thick. It went through an 80 mesh sieve with almost no pushing it through the screen. The particles must be nice and small. I’m glad I wrote that article about mixing glazes because it is not only a nice resource but I remember the process much better after doing it and writing about it.

I’ve got a post almost finished with some photos of recent logo mugs that will be up soon. Be on the lookout for that and remember I also post some shorter updates on my facebook page.

 

 

Mixing Ceramics Glaze – Pam’s Blue

About a week ago I mixed up some glaze from a pre-mixed powder.  The powder was Pam’s Blue by Coyote and it was my first attempt at mixing any kind of glaze outside of the Huntington Clay House.  I got to purchase some new tools and I did some research and even talked to a few people on Clayart.  In the end it wasn’t too hard.

respirator

nice respirator

I talked my wife into helping and she had a lot of fun….  She took a couple pictures so I could share my experience.  The first thing you want to remember is: Safety First!  I got to wear a new respirator so I didn’t breathe too much of the dust when I was dumping the powder into the water. It’s a good look!

mixing glaze

mixing glaze

My wife mixed the water while I slowly dumped the powder .  It got pretty thick, even when I used all the water that the directions called for.  I was supposed to use 1 gallon and 1 pint but added a lot more by the end of the process.  I used my cordless drill and a 1 gallon paint mixer to mix the powder into the water. Even after mixing it with the drill mixer for a while it was still pretty lumpy.

glaze sieve

glaze sieve

I put it through an 80 mesh sieve three times.  After letting it sit overnight I mixed it up again with the drill mixer and it was ready to be applied to some bisque ware. I even checked the specific gravity or “density” with a hydrometer.

I’ll have  a full post on the items that I pulled out of the kiln.  The Pam’s Blue that I mixed from powder actually looks different than the pre-mixed pints I’ve used.  Check later to see how!

New Ceramic Supplies

I love Spring Break!  I recently did some internet shopping at Clay-King.com and Axner.com.  Both are good places to get ceramic and pottery supplies.

glazes by coyote and amaco

coyote and amaco glazes

Clay King was having a pretty good sale on glazes.  I ordered a few of my favorites (Coyote: Red Gold and Leopard Shino) and a few new colors to test (Coyote: Espresso Bean and Saturated Iron and Amaco: Frosted Turquoise and Iron Lustre).  I also ordered 10 lbs. of Pam’s Blue dry powder (by Coyote).  Finally!  As soon as I mix up the Pam’s Blue I will be able to dip and pour instead of brushing glaze onto every… single… piece…  This should drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to glaze a load of bisque ware.  I guess at first there will be a lot of blue mugs and bowls but if everything goes smoothly I hope to order some more glazes in dry powder form and mix up some large quantities.

hydrometer, sieve, glaze chemicals

hydrometer, sieve, glaze chemicals, kiln posts

Speaking of mixing glazes…  I needed a few more items to get the job done.  Axner had some pretty good prices on most of the stuff I needed so I ordered a hydrometer, sieve, kiln posts, and some other dry chemicals.  I hope to mix some of my own glazes in the future so I’m starting a small collection of dry chemicals.

In other not-very-exciting news I installed a more permanent light above my wheel and made a small shelf behind the wheel where I can put freshly thrown pots to dry.

In the somewhat-exciting department I have a few mugs and bowls drying on the shelf.  I just threw a few more before track practice today which need handles but I’ll try to put up some pictures before the bisque fire.  I’m trying a different kind of clay so I’m anxious to see how it fires.