single firing ash glazes

Not all ash glazes are applied thick. Mine, over inlay, has to be
relatively thin to show contrast between the white slip inlay and the
iron body.

Never the less, if you are glazing porcelain, a closed clay body, you
can glaze at bone dry. With an open stoneware body, it is best to
glaze leather hard. If you glaze then, you don't get cracking. 3%
soda ash will help require less water in the glaze and make it thicker.

I put up a photo of a shino test I just took out of the kiln.
You can see it he

http://claycraft.blogspot.com/

--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://hankos.blogspot.com/ Visual Bookmarks

"We can make our minds
so like still water
that beings gather about us
that they may see,...
....their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer,
perhaps even with a fiercer life
because of our quiet." -- W. B. Yeats

Heres another on the same subject.

Ive got a bucket of ash glaze sitting around the workshop, ash,
feldspar and quartz. at the time I made the batch up, I was preparing
a kiln full of "twice firing" pots, the glaze was to go on bisqueware.
I remember trying the glaze out on raw pots at the time, it all flaked
off due to lack of raw shrinkage, due to lack of plastic clay in the
slop. Recently I tried the glaze once more on bisqueware and to my
surprise the clay shrivelled up on the pots on drying. The raw
shrinkage of the glaze has increased dramatically, from what I've been
able to work out from reading and asking around, due to floculation
caused by soluble alkalis in the ash.

Out of curiosity I decided to try it out once again on a raw pot, and
well I never, it seems to stay where its told! I haven't fired yet so
I dont know for sure, but in my experience, if it's going to jump off
the pot in the kiln, you can generally notice when it is dry, if you
prod at it a bit.

Maybe this is a good way of getting a non plastic ash glaze to stay on
a raw pot, just wait? Maybe this is old hat and you all know it
already, but whatever, an experience to share.

From a rainy saturday in St Amand en Puisaye, France,
Alistair.


"Lee In Mashiko, Japan" wrote in message roups.com...
Not all ash glazes are applied thick. Mine, over inlay, has to be
relatively thin to show contrast between the white slip inlay and the
iron body.

Never the less, if you are glazing porcelain, a closed clay body, you
can glaze at bone dry. With an open stoneware body, it is best to
glaze leather hard. If you glaze then, you don't get cracking. 3%
soda ash will help require less water in the glaze and make it thicker.

I put up a photo of a shino test I just took out of the kiln.
You can see it he

http://claycraft.blogspot.com/

--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://hankos.blogspot.com/ Visual Bookmarks

"We can make our minds
so like still water
that beings gather about us
that they may see,...
....their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer,
perhaps even with a fiercer life
because of our quiet." -- W. B. Yeats