What material makes the tiny bubbles? The big bubbles?

Tuesday 23rd June 2015

These are two 10 gram GBMF test balls of Worthington Clear glaze fired at cone 03 on insight-live.com/glossary/88">terra cotta tiles (55 Gerstley Borate, 30 kaolin, 20 silica). On the left it contains raw kaolin, on the right calcined kaolin. The clouds of finer bubbles (on the left) are gone from the glaze on the right. That means the kaolin is generating them and the Gerstley Borate the larger bubbles. These are a bane of the terra cotta process. One secret of getting more transparent glazes is to fire to temperature and soak only long enough to even out the temperature, then drop 100F and soak there (I hold it half an hour).

Pages that reference this post in the Digitalfire Reference Library:

Gerstley Borate, Kaolin, Calcined Kaolin, Glaze Bubbles, LOI, Transparent Glazes, Soaking, Clouding in Ceramic Glazes

This post is one of thousands found in the Digitalfire Reference Database. Most are part of a timeline maintained by Tony Hansen. You can search that timeline on the home page of digitalfire.com.