Solve Real Problems

Step-by-step Case Studies

In these I am going to show you how to use your account at Insight-live.com to do things that were not possible until now. It is about the data. The data you let slip by in your testing up until now and the new data you will be recording as you organize that testing in a way you never did before. It is about work. If you are willing to do it you will able to learn things about your process and materials, understand them, learn to control them and take them down new roads that were not possible before.

Go to Topic: Step-by-step Case Studies

Videos

These are videos that use Desktop Insight or Insight-live to solve problems with a glaze, body or material.

These videos are hosted on our channels at Youtube.com and Screencast-o-matic.com.

Desktop Insight

Convert a Cone 10 Glaze to Cone 6 Using Desktop Insight

Learn the chemistry differences between cone 10 and 6 glazes and how to make a glaze melt at a lower temperature without introducing other problems like crazing. (watch at Youtube).

Creating Rules for Calcium Carbonate - Wollastonite Substitution

How to use Digitalfire Insight software to determine how much wollastonite to add and silica to remove to substitute for calcium carbonate in the glaze. Create substitution rules. (watch at Youtube).

How I Fixed a Settling Glaze Slurry Using Desktop Insight

Learn to reformulate a glaze that is settling in the bucket. Al2O3 and KNaO are sourced by the feldspar, we will source them from kaolin and frits instead. (watch at Youtube).

Subsitute Gerstley Borate in Floating Blue Using Desktop Insight

Use Desktop Insight to explore ways of calculating substitutes for Gerstley Borate in the popular Floating Blue cone 6 glaze recipe while maintaining or improving the other raw and fired properties of the glaze. (watch at Youtube).

Substituting Materials by Weight: Why it does not work!

Wollastonite is 50:50 CaO:SiO2. So why not just substitute 40 wollastonite for 20 calcium carbonate and 20 silica? The answer will help you see reason why we make such a big deal of glaze chemistry. (watch at Youtube).

Substituting Nepheline Syenite for Soda Feldspar

Learn to substitute Nepheline Syenite for Soda Feldspar (and vice versa) using the KNaO concept in Insight. You will see the benefit of in-recipe substitution calculation rather than making general substitution rules. (watch at Youtube).

Insight-live

Analysing a Crazing, Cutlery-marking Glaze Using Insight-Live

A high-nepheline, zero-silica cone 8 silky matte pottery glaze is cutlery marking and crazing. Let's take a closer look and determine why? (watch at Screencart-o-Matic.com).

Create a Synthetic Feldspar in Insight-Live

A step-by-step of how to duplicate the chemistry of Minspar by mixing other materials. You will learn the calculate process, the type of testing to do and how to keep track of the results with notes, pictures and links. (watch at Screencart-o-Matic.com).

Creating a Cone 6 Oil-Spot Overglaze Effect

In this video I use my Insight-live account to do the chemistry to convert an existing MgO-matt glaze into a tin-opacified, high-surface-tension melt for double-layering over a gloss black. I also use it to record my physical testing. (watch at Screencart-o-Matic.com).

Substitute Ferro Frit 3134 For Another Frit

I use my Insight-live account to do the glaze chemistry to replace Ferro frit 3134 with combinations of three other common Ferro frits. We will see the challenges of doing this in three different types of recipes. (watch at Screencart-o-Matic.com).

Predicting Glaze Durability by Chemistry in Insight-Live

How to spot out-of-balance indicators in the chemistry of ceramic glazes that suggest susceptibility to scratching or cutlery marking. (watch at Youtube).

A Broken Glaze Meets Insight-Live and a Magic Material

Use Insight-Live.com to do major surgery on a feldspar saturated cone 10R glaze recipe with multiple issues: blistering, pinholing, crazing, settling, dusting and possibly leaching! (watch at Youtube).

How I Formulated a Cone 6 Silky Matte Glaze Using Insight-Live

I will show you how found a recipe on Facebook, assessed it, substituted my own materials, tested it, adjusted it. Now it is like a cone 10 dolomite matte. (watch at Youtube).

How I Improved a Popular Cone 6 Clear Glaze Using Insight-Live

How I found a ceramic glaze recipe on Facebook, substituted a frit for the Gerstley Borate, added the extra SiO2 it needed and got a fabulous more durable cone 6 clear. (watch at Youtube).

Insight-Live Meets a Silica Deprived Glaze Recipe

Using Insight-live I will demonstrate the surprising amount of silica some cone 6 glazes that appear OK will accept and still melt well. (watch at Youtube).

Replace Lithium Carbonate With Lithium Frit Using Insight-Live

Raw lithium carbonate can often be replaced with a lithium-containing frit if you can do the chemistry. And you can at insight-live.com. (watch at Youtube).