FreeShip- Ceramic Glaze, Prepared Mid-Range, Dry, Blue/Turquoise, Cone 4-6 - (Prompt rebate on orders with 3 or more FreeShip items!)

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This is a pre-mixed dry glaze. Mid-range, ^4 to ^6. As is, it's a glossy glaze. Midrange glazes, which are fired using stoneware and porcelain clay, are strong and durable. It is applied onto bisque fired clay and glaze fired again.
We are selling this in small quantities so it can be tried before buying larger quantities. My personal knowledge of glazes is limited, because I used ceramics to fire stoneware and porcelain sculptures, which I never glazed. For many potters, the appearance of a piece of ware is mainly how the glaze looks (and the shape of the pot!), since the majority of pottery is glazed. That makes knowledge of the chemistry of glazes very important to experienced potters, who formulate their own glazes and are forever experimenting to get a new or just specific look for glaze "X". Glazes are a far more complicated topic than clay bodies.
This is pulled from the Wikipedia article on ceramic glazes { https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_glaze } :
"Ceramic glaze is an impervious layer or coating of a vitreous substance which has been fused to a ceramic body through firing. Glaze can serve to color, decorate or waterproof an item. Glazing renders earthenware vessels suitable for holding liquids, sealing the inherent porosity of unglazed biscuit earthenware. It also gives a tougher surface. Glaze is also used on stoneware and porcelain. In addition to their functionality, glazes can form a variety of surface finishes, including degrees of glossy or matte finish and color. Glazes may also enhance the underlying design or texture either unmodified or inscribed, carved or painted.
Most pottery produced in recent centuries has been glazed, other than pieces in unglazed biscuit porcelain, terracotta, or some other types. Tiles are almost always glazed on the surface face, and modern architectural terracotta is very often glazed. Glazed brick is also common. Domestic sanitary ware is invariably glazed, as are many ceramics used in industry, for example ceramic insulators for overhead power lines...
Glazes need to include a ceramic flux which functions by promoting partial liquefaction in the clay bodies and the other glaze materials. Fluxes lower the high melting point of the glass forms silica, and sometimes boron trioxide. These glass forms may be included in the glaze materials, or may be drawn from the clay beneath.
Raw materials of ceramic glazes generally include silica, which will be the main glass former. Various metal oxides, such as sodium, potassium, and calcium, act as flux and therefore lower the melting temperature. Alumina, often derived from clay, stiffens the molten glaze to prevent it from running off the piece. Colorants, such as iron oxide, copper carbonate, or cobalt carbonate, and sometimes opacifiers like tin oxide or zirconium oxide, are used to modify the visual appearance of the fired glaze."

Also, another quote from DigitalFire, my favorite go-to source when I need to look up something about ceramics. This is from an article on glazes used in the tile industry (tiles are always glazed, necessarily):
"We can outline an exhaustive set of relationships between the firing and fired characteristics of frits and pigments and their oxide compositions but we cannot do this it for glazes. For glazes, reactions and processes developing during firing never reach a steady state of equilibrium. Thus glazes, after firing, can be considered anything from glasses having a local random distribution of elements (where phases have a more orderly arrangement of elements) to absolutely dispersed crystalline phases.
Consider a simple hypothetical glaze containing 50% frit and 50% natural or synthetic crystalline materials: After firing this glaze will show specific characteristics that we can only partially foresee. We need a more "scientific" approach that will give us a better level of control and the ability to foresee the aesthetic result after firing, we need a lot of information.
For instance:
For each frit or mixture: the composition, the homogeneity status, the particle size distribution or specific surface area.
For each natural or synthetic crystalline material: the composition and structure, the crystalline phase and their progressions with temperature and interrelationships (for non homogeneous materials), particle size distribution or specific surface area.
Thickness of glaze before firing.
Composition of ceramic body and, by extension, the interface reactions between glaze and ceramic body.
Actual curve of temperature vs. time in which the glaze will be fired, in other words, the calories imposed on the glaze at each instant of the temperature curve.
Composition of the kiln atmosphere.
Having all of the above information we can begin to visualize the progression of each solid state reaction and the chemical composition of each amorphous and crystalline phase after firing. Still, it is difficult to get a picture close to the real final physical fired product. The number of surprises coming out of the kiln and the number of variables involved quickly make it evident that glazes and their materials are very complicated. Thus I like to imagine a glaze as being like a match: we have to strike a match to see if it works like we have to test a glaze to see its surface."

Reviews

Reviews (3)

Average:

Aug 24, 2024

quick service, and I didn't have to buy more than I needed.

Cassandra Lawson

Aug 10, 2023

I asked a question about how to mix with water and still no answer. Easy question but nothing. How will I know if this is a good product or not?

Carolyn Tinner

Sep 27, 2022

EXCELLENT AND FAST SHIPPING! THANKS

Maria Soledad