Glaze and Clay Body RecipesThe industrial ceramic world generally revolves around fancy production machines, they are the stars. But behind the scenes engineers and technicians are the real heroes, they supply the body and glaze recipes that make the machines work and they adapt these to the requirements of the machine. Actually, in most cases this is not true, suppliers actually provide ready-made recipes, the factories just use them and complain to supplier technical support when there are problems. In the pottery world the opposite situation exists. There is a 'recipe culture', thousands are available in textbooks and on the internet. Many people carefully guard their recipes regarding these as the key to their business. They adapt their production techniques and equipment to the recipes and often exercise great patience tolerating less-than-ideal behaviors.
In both cases the recipes are not generally 'understood' by production staff. That means they are not controlled. People do not know why each ingredient is in a recipe or even what each is. They generally do not understand how a recipe might be adjusted to fix a problem or be better adapted to their production situation. Most critically, they do not understand how to evaluate problems and ask the right questions. This is the reason why we recommend a material-centered ceramic knowledge universe and a production situation where technical staff at a facility have control and understanding. Understanding materials means knowing their mineralogy, their physical properties, their chemistry. Using these materials in recipes means it is necessary to understand how materials interact and contribute their properties. Recipes in this section are presented with links to material and oxide information, putting them into the proper context in this database of multi-level knowledge. We intend that you adjust any recipe you find here to adapt it to your situation. All the mineral, chemical and material knowledge you need can be found here also. Out Bound Links
 Why Textbook Glazes Are So DifficultThe trade is glaze recipes has spawned generations of potters going up blind alleys trying recipes that don't work and living with ones that are much more trouble than they are worth. It is time to leave this behind and take control. - Identifying Glaze Mechanisms
If you can look at a glaze recipe and pick out the materials add to produce the color, opacity and variegation you can transplant these into your own base glaze - Floating Blue: The Most Popular Cone 6 Glaze
Inspite of the fact it is very fickle, the floating blue cone 6 glaze is a good example of a recipe that displays many different kinds of variegation. Gerstley borate is one of the main reasons for its properties. - What is the Glaze Dragon?
At Digitalfire we use a Dragon to personify the kinds of thinking that prevent potters, educators and technicians from understanding and therefore controlling their glazes. - Fighting the Glaze Dragon
At Digitalfire we promote the idea of understanding and formulating your own glazes so you have control rather than relying on suppliers or the trade in glaze recipes. - Where Do I Start?
The perfect universal glaze recipe does not exist, the only way you will get the glazes you really need is formulate or adapt them yourself. Start with base recipes, learn to understand them from a material level, then learn the mechanisms, and chemistry. - G1214M Cone 5-7 20x5 Glossy Base Glaze
This is a base transparent glaze recipe developed for cone 6. It is known as the 20x5 or 20 by 5 recipe. It is a simple 5 material at 20% each mix and it makes a good home base from which to rationalize adjustments. - G1214W Cone 6 Transparent Base Glaze
The process we used to improve the 20x5 base cone 6 glaze recipe - Glaze Recipes: Formulate Your Own Instead
The only way you will ever get the glaze you really need is to formulate your own. The longer you stay on the glaze recipe treadmill the more time you waste. - The Four Levels on Which to View Ceramic Glazes
By knowing which level to view a glaze from you are much better equipped to understand and control it. The levels are process, recipe, material, oxide. - Batch Recipe, Batch Formula
The term 'batch' refers to the actual mixture-by-weights of materials that you weight out when you prepare a glaze or clay body batch for production or testing. The term 'recipe' is more correct than 'formula', the latter refers to the chemistry of the mix. - Low Fire White Talc Casting Body Recipe
The classic white ball clay talc casting and modelling recipe has been used for many years. It is a dream to use as long as you are aware of the problems and risks. - Concentrate on One Good Glaze
It is better to understand and have control of one good base glaze than be at the mercy of dozens of imported recipes that do not work. There is a lot more to being a good glaze than fired appearance. - Variegating Glazes
This is an overview of the various mechanisms you can employ to make glazes dance with color, crystals, highlights, speckles, rivulets, etc. - Glaze Formula to Batch Calculations
This chapter in the lessons section of the book (and matching video at digitalfire.com) shows you how to use a non-unity calculation and the supply button to convert a formula into a batch recipe. You...
| 
