The ball clay you use to suspend your glaze is important!


Friday 27th December 2013

I poured 4 teaspoons of two glazes onto a non-absorbent butcher’s board and let them sit for a minute, then inclined the board. The one on the right employs Gleason insight-live.com/material/80">Ball clay, the left one has Old Hickory #5 ball clay. Neither has any rheology modifier additions. The one on the right has settled and, on incline of the board, the watery upper is running off. The other has gelled and the whole thing is running downward slowly. Below that you can see where I have begun to sponge them off, the one on the right is sticky. The most amazing thing about this: This difference appears despite the fact that there is only 7% ball clay in this heavily fritted recipe.

Pages that reference this post in the Digitalfire Reference Library:

No. 5 Ball Clay, No. 1 Glaze Ball Clay, Ball Clay, Suspension, Glaze Slurry is Difficult to Use or Settling


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.