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raku glaze questions.

updated mon 12 jul 04

 

jacob moore on sat 10 jul 04


I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to tell me if it's safe to store dry (or wet) foods in raku glazed pots that aren't raku fired? I'm very fond of spectrums raku glazes because they set up fast and smooth out to a beautiful semi-transparent gloss quickly, and I am limited in my firings to a garbage can kiln in my driveway that I have to watch so I don't have a lot of time to fire and I need quick firing glazes. The pots I make turn out smooth and glossy so I assume they are non-porous, but I don't know if they are non-toxic (If it says they are non-toxic on the glaze container are they safe?) Would they be safe for candy, nuts, or pipe tobacco for example? What about using my pots to serve mashed potatos for example?

thanks a bunch
jacob moore


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Craig Dunn Clark on sun 11 jul 04


Jacob, this issue has come up about a bazillion times on clayart.
Consult the archives for difinitive infomation. In short, low fired glazes
are not safe for food service. The clay body will not be vitrified at the
temperature that you are firing to and the glazes were never intended to be
used for utilitarian purposes. More than likely the glazes are unstable.
Additionally, just because a glaze looks like it has a good fit with a
clay body does not mean that it actually does. Find the time to high fire if
you are making pieces for food service.
Craig Dunn Clark
619 East 11 1/2 st
Houston, Texas 77008
(713)861-2083
mudman@hal-pc.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "jacob moore"
To:
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 1:02 AM
Subject: raku glaze questions.


> I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to tell me if it's safe
to store dry (or wet) foods in raku glazed pots that aren't raku fired? I'm
very fond of spectrums raku glazes because they set up fast and smooth out
to a beautiful semi-transparent gloss quickly, and I am limited in my
firings to a garbage can kiln in my driveway that I have to watch so I don't
have a lot of time to fire and I need quick firing glazes. The pots I make
turn out smooth and glossy so I assume they are non-porous, but I don't know
if they are non-toxic (If it says they are non-toxic on the glaze container
are they safe?) Would they be safe for candy, nuts, or pipe tobacco for
example? What about using my pots to serve mashed potatos for example?
>
> thanks a bunch
> jacob moore
>
>
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> New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
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Lee Love on mon 12 jul 04


Craig Dunn Clark wrote:

> In short, low fired glazes are not safe for food service.
>

Linda Arbuckle (one of the "old timers" I miss here) makes some of my
favorite "food safe" low fired ware:

http://grafik.sdsu.edu/ceramicsweb/articles/majolica.html

(if links are broken below, please cut and paste):

http://images.google.com/images?q=%2B%22linda%20arbuckle%22%20%2Bmajolica&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=N&tab=wi

--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://journals.fotki.com/togeika/Mashiko/ Commentary On Pottery