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1
PREPARATIONS
2
REFERENCE BOOKS fairly pure ingredients so that the effects
Those of you already well used to glazing we want to observe are not masked by
and firing your own pots will probably not impurities in the glaze or clay. Base
need much extra reading apart from this glazes are theoretically free of colouring
book. For beginners, 1will often be refer- oxides, but a fairly common impurity in
ring to standard texts that cover the real clay is iron oxide that can imparta definite
fundamentals, such as how to mix your colour toa glaze, even when present only
glaze and apply it to the pot etc. 1 have in the clay body in quite small quantities.
avoided trying to make this book all- In choosing the clay body to receive the
encompassing: the assumption is that glazes and in choosing the China clay
readers own or can get access to other (kaolin) for use as a glaze ingredient, we
excellent texts that cover the basics. will select clays as low as possible in iron
Students doing the AFAS correspon- oxide.
dence course are recommended to get You must not think, however, that
Glazes for the Craft Potter by Harry Fraser 'purity' equals 'quality'. Often the reversa
(Pitman) as a reference for beginners, is the case. Purity aids understanding by
and Frank Hamer's Potter's Dctonary of removing some of the unforeseeable vari-
Materals and Technques ables. Your pure matarais will better
(Watson-Guptill) is recommended as an show the influence of the variables you
excellent general reference. Other have chosen to examine; and once you
classics by Leach, Cardew and Parmelee understand how these variables work,
are referred to regularly in the text. In Part you can then apply these principies to
11 , Those Ce/adon 8/ues by Robert less pure materials with understanding.
Tichane (available from him, cfo New Once the experiments have been done, 1
York State lnstitute for Glaze Research, will actually recommend that less pure
511 N. Hamilton Street, Painted Post, materials (less expensive and more
New York 14870, USA) and also Oriental readily available) are used to produce
Glazes by Nigel Wood (Pitman) are rec- equivalents or derivativas of the exper-
ommended in the study of oriental imental glazes for general use in your pot-
glazes. tery workshop.
For those new to pottery who have not
BASIC GLAZE THEORY ANO
had much experience at actually getting a
PRACTICE
glaze onto a pot, 1 recommend you read
Chapters 14 and 15 in Fraser's book. But
As you probably know already, most here are the basic points:
glazes contain fluxes, alumina and silica.
A glaze of this sort is callad a 'base glaze' 1. Care should be taken with powdered
and may be used by itself as a glaze, or it glaze materials. Barium carbonate is
may be altered by adding colouring poisonous, and sorne matarais are
oxides, andfor opacifiers. In Part 1of this dangerous if inhalad, especially
course we will be examining a large range silca.
of base glazes - eight sets in all - each 2. You need a set of scales that will weigh
set choosing a different set o f fluxes, and fairly accurately up to abo\.Jt a
varying alumina and silica over a large kilogram. lf it measures to a tenth of a
range. gram, that should be as accurate as
At this stage, if you feel a little lost by you need for most applications. lf you
terms such as fluxes, a/umina and si/lea, are using cheap scales, you should get
then 1 recommend a crash course on them testad by putting sorne accurate
glaze elements -- either the first tour weights on the pan.
chapters of Fraser's book or r'ference to 3. We will not be using a hydrometer or
Hamer's dictionary mentioned above, glaze binders or electrolytes as men-
should help. But in a nutshell: the silica is tioned in Fraser (Chapter 14) but will
what makes the 'glass' in the glaze (it is use clay (usually kaolin) as a sus-
nature's commonest glass formar); the pender wherever this is acceptable by
fluxes make the silica melt at a reason- the glaze formula.
able temperatura (by itself, slica melts at 4. The main methods of glaze application
1713C while we are working around will be by syringe and by dipping.
1280C); and the alumina is the 'stiffener' 5. You wlll need to get the feel for what is
that makes the glaze viscous so that it adequate thickness for glaze appl-
does not run off the pot like water as soon cation. We will be using variations in
as it melts. thickness to learn as much as possiole
For the eight sets of glazes, we will use from each tile. More on that later.