Studio Notes
Working notes from the studio: glaze tests, bigger forms, partial failures, and the practical decisions that sit behind finished pots.
These are not polished tutorials. They are records of what is being tried, what is worth remembering, and what needs another firing before it becomes a proper conclusion.
For an August exhibition at the pottery studio, I am making three kinds of ceramic drum. One is glazed and waiting for a goat-skin head, one is bisque-fired and ready for an oxide wash pattern, and one has just been thrown for a slip design.
Testing a possible pink at cone 6 by making a small chrome concentrate instead of trying to weigh a tiny addition directly.
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Glaze test
A first glaze note: testing a possible pink at cone 6 by making a small chrome concentrate instead of trying to weigh a tiny addition directly.
The test was built around a pinkish chrome-tin direction, with tin oxide at 7% and chrome at roughly 0.15% in the finished glaze. The challenge was the chrome: the amount needed was too small to weigh comfortably, so a stronger concentrate made the test line easier to measure.
Made as a 214 g dry batch with 180 ml of water. The measured specific gravity was 1.47, using a tared 10 ml syringe sample of the base glaze.
30 ml of base glaze was mixed with 0.72 g chrome oxide. That gives a small concentrate at roughly 2.4% chrome, which can then be added in measured volumes to the base glaze.
Each test cup started with 20 ml of base glaze, then water was added so every cup reached the same final volume.
Each tile had three dips: 6 seconds over the whole tile, 6 seconds over the top half, and 6 seconds on the top 5 mm, letting the glaze dry before each dip.
Fired to cone 6: 90°C/hr to 150°C, 130°C/hr to 650°C, 200°C/hr to 1080°C, then 130°C/hr to 1220°C with a 20 minute soak.