On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 15:36:06 -0500, "DKat"
wrote:

Ok, I've been doing a lot of playing around. Some glazes seem complete
secure. Others seem fine except for on the lip. This has flaked off. Have
you had this problem and is there any way to recover from it. I'm working
with little tiny bowls right now so they are fairly tolerant. Do I spray
the entire pot to dampen it and then just dip the lip? Do I paint the lip
with corn syrup and then dip? Anyone have experience with this? I want to
fire the pieces to see how the glazes look but as is they would then have to
be thrown out.

Also are you glazing bone dry or leather hard?


Regarding the last question, you have to be very careful
when glazing bone-dry wa If it absorbs too much water,
the body can crack. Sometimes the cracking is not obvious
until after firing. I have given up using pour and dip methods
on bone-dry single-fire, but I suspect spraying would be OK
since you could keep it dry. (I am avoiding spraying since
I don't have a setup for that.)

Something else you might want to consider, at least for
experimentation if not for production, is using a base other
than water for pour and dip glazing of bone-dry ware.
The idea is that water rehydrates the body and causes
expansion cracking, but some other vehicle may not.
So far I have only tried oil (canola). I just mixed up the
regular glaze recipe but added oil instead of water.
This basically works, but it is really hard to use because the
glaze is left as a vrey loose powder on the surface of the
piece... reminds me of butterfly wing scales. So I ended
up with unavoidable finger smudges just from moving the
ware into the kiln, etc. But for a production operation you
might be able to use tongs or something.

I suspect any non-aqueous solvent would be a good candidate
to try. The problem is finding one that is cheap and safe.
For example, concentrated alcohol might work, but who can
afford that except for someone-off masterpiece? And
various low-weight solvents might work, but who wants
to have gasoline or xylene, etc, in the studio?

If anyone has any ideas for other solvents, I'm all ears!

Best regards,


Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

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