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using rutile in glazes

updated tue 30 sep 97

 

Lyn Packer on wed 3 sep 97

Hi Everyone,
Could anyone give me detailed information on using the
different strength rutiles in glazes - the pros and cons {fors & againsts}.
I have used it at odd times and know what the books say about it. But I'd
like to know more, and would also like to hear of your experiences of using
it. At the moment I'm trying out a new glaze that has 8% rutile added to
it. It's a cone 9-10 glaze and I've been using it on a white stoneware
body. It's a lovely flowing glaze. My first test:- colours - blue speckled
with greens and pink coming through, cream where thick and tan where thin.
It's very dependent on the thickness in order for the colours to show
through. Anyway, I then made up a slightly larger batch and added my first
test mix to it {very careful with weighing}. Is that where I went wrong,
adding these 2 together? The next test was completely different. I'd lost
most of the blue, all the green & pink. The main colour was a fine speckled
salmon pink. I also have a small amount of pinholing {none in the first
test}. I'm very careful about wiping my pots before glazing, and I soak for
an hour.
What's the limit on the amount of rutile you can put in a
glaze? If I added less would the colours come out more? Is there anything
that I should be wary or careful of when using it?
Look forward to hearing your views. Lyn

The Shelfords on thu 4 sep 97

Hi Lyn -
It might be the rutile, of course, but it is more probably the phenomenon
of small-batch tests being amazingly different from the larger amounts. No
matter how careful you are, the slight inaccuracies of your scale, which
don't matter in larger batches, WILL make a difference with test-size
batches. Putting the two batches together shouldn't have made any
difference. Or then again, there might have been some fuming from other
things in the kiln, near your test piece. I have shelves and shelves of
BEAUTIFUL tests that have been more or less unrepeatable. Whoever said
small is beautiful must have been a potter...
- Veronica

Lyn wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> At the moment I'm trying out a new glaze that has 8% rutile added to
>it... My first test:- colours - blue speckled
>with greens and pink coming through, cream where thick and tan where
thin...
..Anyway, I then made up a slightly larger batch and added my first
>test mix to it {very careful with weighing}. Is that where I went wrong,
>adding these 2 together? The next test was completely different...
> What's the limit on the amount of rutile you can put in a
>glaze? If I added less would the colours come out more? Is there anything
>that I should be wary or careful of when using it?




____________________________________________________________________________
Veronica Shelford
e-mail: shelford@island.net
s-mail: P.O. Box 6-15
Thetis Island, BC V0R 2Y0
Tel: (250) 246-1509
____________________________________________________________________________