Chemistry basics for potters?

Hi everyone

I have litterally only had about 3 lessons in Chemistry during my schooling,
due to a change of systems late in high-school. And those 3 lessons were so
far over my head, you wouldn't believe it.

Now, especially considering the problems I am having using other peoples'
glazes, I really want at least to understand more about the components that
go into the glazes. At best, maybe I can learn enough to understand how to
make my own glazes.

Toward this goal, I have bought the following books and I will list them in
the order I intend to read them:

The cartoon guide to chemistry - gonick/criddle
Chemistry for dummies - moore
An introduction to chemistry for biology students - sackheim *
Chemistry in context - hill/holman

*I did do very well in biology at school, so I thought this would be a good
angle. Also, it doesn't hurt to know something about chemistry in living
matter.

I bought Chemistry in Context first, but that was WAY over my head. I hope
that the progression now will help me to get an understanding of things. The
cartoon guide actually looks very promising, and entertaining at the same
time!

Getting lengthy here. What I want to ask you guys is if you know of any
chemistry books that deal specifically with the chemistry of pottery - both
clays and glazes - and anything else that might involve. I do have quite a
few pottery books, some a bit in depth, that do deal with chemistry in a
chapter or more - but I have always skipped those before, so if you know of
a book like that as well, where the explanations are simple enough to be
understood by a newbie, please point those out as well!

THANKS for your time!

Marianne

The first thing I would have recommended you do is to go to these sites and
read what they have. There is more than you will ever want to know on the
digitalfire site about chemistry. It is an excellent educational source.
Frogpondpottery has a wonderful article on glaze stability. Both
Masteringglazes and digitalfire have software for analyzing your glazes. I
have a very primitive program for doing so but have given up on giving it
out because I kept finding bugs in it that people never told me were there
so I decided it was not safe for me to be sharing. Plus both digitalfire
and masteringglazes software have experts behind the software that can give
you the right answers to you questions.

http://www.digitalfire.com/
http://www.masteringglazes.com/
http://www.frogpondpottery.com/glaze...bleglazes.html


examples
http://ceramic-materials.com/cermat/education/126.html
http://www.masteringglazes.com/Pages/GM1frame.html
http://ceramic-materials.com/cermat/...ion/index.html
http://ceramic-materials.com/cermat/education/15.html
http://ceramic-materials.com/cermat/education/197.html

Organic chemistry is really not going to be of any use to you. In fact, the
most you will really need to know, you probably already know. Potters work
in the world of oxides - an oxide is a chemical compound containing one or
more oxygen molecules.

Next I would recommend you go to the clayart list - you have to join to post
but you don't have to join to search. Many questions you would ask have
already been asked.

http://lsv.ceramics.org/scripts/wa.exe?A0=CLAYART
http://lsv.ceramics.org/scripts/wa.exe?S1=clayart
http://www.potters.org/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/clayart/

The book I would recommend is Mastering Cone 6 Glazes by John Hesselberth
and Ron Roy (see above site).

While I really like this room it is for the most part relatively quiet (one
of the reasons I like it). I think you would do better posting your
questions in the other room. They have first class support there who check
in regularly.

Donna

P.S. I checked the site where you get your glaze and clay and still have
not been able to figure out what is what. They are not going to share the
recipe of their glazes however so there is no way to help with the chemistry
of your glazes. It would be good to know if you are underfiring your glaze
but I can't find it from what you gave us. As I said however, any
commercial glaze should not be giving you this problem if you are firing to
the correct temperature.

"Bubbles_" wrote in message
...
Hi everyone

I have litterally only had about 3 lessons in Chemistry during my
schooling, due to a change of systems late in high-school. And those 3
lessons were so far over my head, you wouldn't believe it.

Now, especially considering the problems I am having using other peoples'
glazes, I really want at least to understand more about the components
that go into the glazes. At best, maybe I can learn enough to understand
how to make my own glazes.

Toward this goal, I have bought the following books and I will list them
in the order I intend to read them:

The cartoon guide to chemistry - gonick/criddle
Chemistry for dummies - moore
An introduction to chemistry for biology students - sackheim *
Chemistry in context - hill/holman

*I did do very well in biology at school, so I thought this would be a
good angle. Also, it doesn't hurt to know something about chemistry in
living matter.

I bought Chemistry in Context first, but that was WAY over my head. I hope
that the progression now will help me to get an understanding of things.
The cartoon guide actually looks very promising, and entertaining at the
same time!

Getting lengthy here. What I want to ask you guys is if you know of any
chemistry books that deal specifically with the chemistry of pottery -
both clays and glazes - and anything else that might involve. I do have
quite a few pottery books, some a bit in depth, that do deal with
chemistry in a chapter or more - but I have always skipped those before,
so if you know of a book like that as well, where the explanations are
simple enough to be understood by a newbie, please point those out as
well!

THANKS for your time!

Marianne

"Bubbles_" wrote in message
...
Hi everyone

I have litterally only had about 3 lessons in Chemistry during my
schooling, due to a change of systems late in high-school. And those 3
lessons were so far over my head, you wouldn't believe it.

(snip)

Hi Maryanne

I have a book called "Ceramic Science for the Potter" by W.G Lawrence which
gives LOTS of information about all technical aspects of ceramics, including
glaze chemistry. If you wanted to do some serious study it's worth a look.
It's an old book (1972) but today I found several copies on abebooks for as
low as US$16. If you are interested I can post more information about the
book.

Cheers

David

In article , Bubbles_
says...
Hi everyone

I have litterally only had about 3 lessons in Chemistry during my schooling,
due to a change of systems late in high-school. And those 3 lessons were so
far over my head, you wouldn't believe it.

Chemistry is easy - it's just electrons. :-) Of course various areas
of chemistry can get a bit complicated, but glaze chemistry is a very
specialized area so you don't need a broad knowledge of the other stuff
in order to learn how glazes work. Don't be put off by the odd names
and symbols, it's a really just like cooking from a recipe - once you
are familiar with the basic ingredients and have a feel for how they
work together you will not only understand what the various ingredients
contribute to the final result[1] but also be able to vary the recipes
to get the result that you want (with a little experimentation).

[1] There's a bit of physics in there too, which basically determines
how the glaze works with the clay you're glazing, but again it's more a
matter of getting a feel for it rather than worrying about complex
equations.


This site seems to offer a pretty good introduction to the basics
http://ceramics.sdsu.edu/articles/classmaterials.html
and might help to allay some of your fears about 'chemistry'. :-)

This is a good book, but as David noted it takes "some serious study".
I have a chemistry background and found it pretty heavy going. I
certainly wouldn't start with it. FYI, it's been reprinted and is
available from Axner's - http://www.axner.com/axner/books/p190.php -
though personally, I'd suggest getting an old copy if possible. Old
hardback books just have more character than new paperbacks.

deg

Hi Maryanne

I have a book called "Ceramic Science for the Potter" by W.G Lawrence which
gives LOTS of information about all technical aspects of ceramics, including
glaze chemistry. If you wanted to do some serious study it's worth a look.
It's an old book (1972) but today I found several copies on abebooks for as
low as US$16. If you are interested I can post more information about the
book.

Cheers

David

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 22:51:56 +0200, "Bubbles_"
wrote:

Hi everyone

I have litterally only had about 3 lessons in Chemistry during my schooling,
due to a change of systems late in high-school. And those 3 lessons were so
far over my head, you wouldn't believe it.

Now, especially considering the problems I am having using other peoples'
glazes, I really want at least to understand more about the components that
go into the glazes. At best, maybe I can learn enough to understand how to
make my own glazes.

Toward this goal, I have bought the following books and I will list them in
the order I intend to read them:

The cartoon guide to chemistry - gonick/criddle
Chemistry for dummies - moore
An introduction to chemistry for biology students - sackheim *
Chemistry in context - hill/holman

*I did do very well in biology at school, so I thought this would be a good
angle. Also, it doesn't hurt to know something about chemistry in living
matter.

I bought Chemistry in Context first, but that was WAY over my head. I hope
that the progression now will help me to get an understanding of things. The
cartoon guide actually looks very promising, and entertaining at the same
time!

Getting lengthy here. What I want to ask you guys is if you know of any
chemistry books that deal specifically with the chemistry of pottery - both
clays and glazes - and anything else that might involve. I do have quite a
few pottery books, some a bit in depth, that do deal with chemistry in a
chapter or more - but I have always skipped those before, so if you know of
a book like that as well, where the explanations are simple enough to be
understood by a newbie, please point those out as well!

THANKS for your time!

Marianne


Basic chemistry (or acidic chemistry... hee, hee!) probably won't
be of much help with clay and glazes, which are pretty specialized.
Some books that I have found helpful for the "big picture" are
"Pioneer Pottery" by Michael Cardew, and "The Potter's Dictionary
of Materials and Techniques" by Frank and Janet Hamer. If you
don't have these, I'd recommend getting them just for general
reference, especially the second one. (I put off getting that for
a long time because of the "Dictionary" in the title... big mistake!
It's not a dictionary at all, more like an encyclopedia... and it
covers *everything* in great detail! I got an older edition from
a used bookseller; still pricey, but well worth it.)

I also second the suggestion of "Mastering Cone 6 Glazes",
and would also include "Glazes Cone 6" by Bailey.

There has been a series called "Back To Basics" by Pete Pinnell
running in Clay Times. The latest installment (Part 4) is called
"Making Sense of Unity Formulas". Covers the bascis well,
and gives good advice.

The big problem is that it's a long way from normal chemistry
to understanding what will make a glaze stiff or runny, glossy
or matte, etc. Most of this comes down to us as "rules of thumb"
which, although they do have a scientific basis, may be better
than trying to figure things out from scratch. There are just
too many variables, especially when you include the firing
schedule, to do any serious prediction "de novo". But once
you have a starting point, it is much easier to say "keeping
everything else the same, more alumina will make this glaze
less runny", or whatever.

Best regards,


Bob Masta

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Signal Generator
Science with your sound card!

Suggestions I got from another source

The Complete Guide to High-fire Glazes - by John Britt

Clay and Glazes for the Potter - by. D. Rhodes

The Ceramic Spectrum - by R. Hopper

.... I'll get back to you guys - just need to make proper notes first.

Marianne

"Rob Morley" wrote in message
t...

Chemistry is easy - it's just electrons. :-) Of course various areas

The thing is, I can't even tell you exactly what an electron is! That's how
lacking my education is in this area. Had I known earlier, I might have
taken a course somewhere, but I can't take a chemistry course here in
Switzerland, because it would be in German, and I don't understand that well
enough to be able to understand what's going on in the course. All the books
I have bought are in English.

Hopefully, I won't need to do any practical work, seeing as I am not going
to take any exams or anything. Cause I really don't want to blow up my
house!!!

of chemistry can get a bit complicated, but glaze chemistry is a very
specialized area so you don't need a broad knowledge of the other stuff
in order to learn how glazes work. Don't be put off by the odd names

I realize that I don't need really in-depth knowledge of everything, but I
do need to have a knowledge which will give me a basis for intuition in
changing glazes this way or that, right? (I work well with basic knowledge
and then using intuition based on that to figure out problems.)

and symbols, it's a really just like cooking from a recipe - once you
are familiar with the basic ingredients and have a feel for how they
work together you will not only understand what the various ingredients
contribute to the final result[1] but also be able to vary the recipes
to get the result that you want (with a little experimentation).

I love that likening to a recipe! They are, after all, called glaze
_recipes_. Viewing them as cakes or such will probably be very helpful to me
when I get to mixing them.

[1] There's a bit of physics in there too, which basically determines
how the glaze works with the clay you're glazing, but again it's more a
matter of getting a feel for it rather than worrying about complex
equations.

Hmmmm - yeah - and I wonder if the physics side of it might have something
to do with my bubble-problems (see other post).

This site seems to offer a pretty good introduction to the basics
http://ceramics.sdsu.edu/articles/classmaterials.html
and might help to allay some of your fears about 'chemistry'. :-)

Just took a quick look, and that site looks like a TRUE GEM!!!! THANK YOU!

Marianne

"Dewitt" wrote in message
...
This is a good book, but as David noted it takes "some serious study".
I have a chemistry background and found it pretty heavy going. I
certainly wouldn't start with it. FYI, it's been reprinted and is
available from Axner's - http://www.axner.com/axner/books/p190.php -
though personally, I'd suggest getting an old copy if possible. Old
hardback books just have more character than new paperbacks.

Thanks for the heads up. If you, with your chemistry background, had a hard
time of it, then it is something for me to wait a LONG time before
considering.

I so agree with you about old hardback books! Sometimes, I just open one of
my older gems and sniff it, yaknow? Not often, though - someone might see me
and think I have something other than paper in there! ;-D

Marianne

"David Coggins" wrote in message
...

Hi Maryanne

I have a book called "Ceramic Science for the Potter" by W.G Lawrence
which gives LOTS of information about all technical aspects of ceramics,
including glaze chemistry. If you wanted to do some serious study it's
worth a look. It's an old book (1972) but today I found several copies on
abebooks for as low as US$16. If you are interested I can post more
information about the book.

Hey David :-)

Dewitt has a chemistry background and found this a bit heavy going, so I
think I will just save the information for later use.

But thank you for your input! I might get to the stage where I can read that
book and understand bits of it! ;-)

Marianne