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zircopax (fwd)

updated thu 23 sep 04

 

daniel on tue 21 sep 04


Hi all

Concerning my question on Zircopax and zirconium silicates, the other day,
Tom Buck made the following comments. I should mention that in my original
post I made an incorrect connection between Zircopax (and its kind) with
the zirconium silicates referred to in Hamer and Hamer. H & H themselves did
not make this connection. Tom clarified this with his note copied, with his
permission, below.

Thanx
D

Belmont, California, USA
(ex terra australis)

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Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 13:15:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Buck
To: daniel , ronroy@ca.inter.net
Subject: Zircopax
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Sirs:
since Zircopax and zircon are NOT the same, any Hamer statement
about zirconium silicate behaviour is suspect should they refer to it as
Zircopax or Ultrox or Superpax. these trademarked ZrSiO4 materials are
highly upgraded zircon (beach sand) ...95+% pure whereas zircon is likely
to be quite a bit less than that and also likely to contain some silica.
at high purity ZrSiO4 does not melt until 2550 degrees Celsius, so it is
highly unlikely it will supply any SiO2 to the growing glaze matrix, even
should there be present some aggressive flux oxides.
to test this, mix a batch of the recipe with Zircopax (or equal)
and another batch with Zr-4 Oxide (zirconia) and Si-4 Oxide (silica) and
compare.
later. peace Tom.
Tom Buck ) -- primary address.
"alias" or secondary address.
tel: 905-389-2339 (westend Lake Ontario, province of Ontario, Canada).
mailing address: 373 East 43rd Street, Hamilton ON L8T 3E1 Canada