Now that is a translucent porcelain! But much more.

Friday 4th April 2014

These are two cone 6 transparent-glazed insight-live.com/glossary/71">porcelain mugs. On the left is the porcelainous Plainsman M370 (Laguna B-Mix 6 would have similar opacity - none). Right is a highly vitreous, New Zealand kaolin based porcelain, Polar Ice. The secret to making this porcelain super-white is the NZ kaolin. The secret of its impossibly-high plasticity is the very expensive plasticizer, VeeGum T. What about the translucency? That is a little more complicated. Nepheline syenite is used as the feldspar, but it alone, in a practical recipe, cannot deliver this kind of translucency at cone 6. Amazingly the 4% Veegum acts as a translucency catalyst, it is the real secret. Commercial manufacturers could never use a sticky and difficult-to-dry porcelain like this, but a potter can do incredible things with it (e.g. throw thinner, lighter, bigger than any other clay he/she has ever used!). Can you make this? Yes. Try the L3778D or L3778G recipes.

Pages that reference this post in the Digitalfire Reference Library:

Formulating a Porcelain, New Zealand Halloysite, Plainsman Polar Ice cone 6 translucent porcelain, Bone China, A 3-minute Mug with Plainsman Polar Ice

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