Well, it's been an interesting week. I had a dealer meeting to go to on Wednesday in Welcome, NC (that's outside of Lexington somewhere), and I had to pick up a trailer at my uncle's in Winston Salem Tuesday night. I figured that while I was in NC, I would make the trip to Highwater Clays to pick up a bunch of glaze chemicals. (By the way, Asheville is in no way on the way to Winston Salem from Charleston, and I spent much of the past few days driving.)
I had a great time in Asheville. I hit Highwater around 10:30 and left about an hour later loaded down. I did manage to forget the 50 lb bag of silica that I needed. But anyways, after Highwater, I walked around downtown and went to a few galleries. I particularly enjoyed Blue Spiral, and seeing Kenneth Baskin's work was great. Ken was one of my favorite teachers in college and really got me making decent functional work in college. I think he had more influence on me than anybody else. Tom Turner's porcelain was absolutely beautiful, and another of my favorite Southeast potters, Jim Connell had some nice work on display.
I had lunch at a great pizza place--I can't remember the name now, but I sat at the bar and had some great dark beer and talked politics with a salesman in town for business. It was really funny, because he makes furniture on the side and had some really great retro inspired work that he showed me on his phone. Isn't technology great! I need to move some pictures to my phone :) It is really interesting how many people have the need for a creative outlet, and meeting this guy was a real treat--tailored suit, clean shaven, and much the opposite of me :) But, we both shared the need to create, and surprisingly, very similar political views.
So tonight I finally got to get back to mixing glazes. I finished the red that I was short of Gertsley Borate, and it made a lot more than I thought it should. It was just over 11,000 grams after colorants and bentonite, and made probably 8 gallons. I do mix my glazes fairly thin, but seriously, is it supposed to make that much? I know some chemicals need more water than others, but I haven't really mixed enough glazes to figure all of that out. I have The Ceramic Glaze Handbook that I am going to pull out tonight to see if I can figure anything out. If you've got any suggestions or comments, let me know.
I was going to talk a little politics, but I'm too tired tonight. Let's just say that politics suck and so do both presidential candidates. The end!
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I think glazes that are heavily based on gerstley borate often need a lot of water to make them seem thin enough. However, I find the thickness is often deceiving with those glazes, and that while they appear very thick in the bucket and when you first dip the pot, they often dry much more thinly. that's my experience anyway.
ReplyDeleteDeb - you are absolutely right. My iron red glaze that I had so much trouble with is loaded with gerstley. Once I figured the glaze needed to be thick & realized I was adding too much water - the results improved. It can be misleading.
ReplyDeleteFrom what y'all said, I may be drying this glaze out a little. It is a high Gerstley glaze. I'm mixing up a bunch of test glazes and I will definitely test this batch before I glaze a bunch of pots. Thanks for the input!
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