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A Low Cost Tester of Glaze Melt Fluidity
A One-speed Lab or Studio Slurry Mixer
A Textbook Cone 6 Matte Glaze With Problems
Adjusting Glaze Expansion by Calculation to Solve Shivering
Alberta Slip, 20 Years of Substitution for Albany Slip
An Overview of Ceramic Stains
Are You in Control of Your Production Process?
Are Your Glazes Food Safe or are They Leachable?
Attack on Glass: Corrosion Attack Mechanisms
Ball Milling Glazes, Bodies, Engobes
Binders for Ceramic Bodies
Bringing Out the Big Guns in Craze Control: MgO (G1215U)
Can We Help You Fix a Specific Problem?
Ceramic Glazes Today
Ceramic Material Nomenclature
Ceramic Tile Clay Body Formulation
Changing Our View of Glazes
Chemistry vs. Matrix Blending to Create Glazes from Native Materials
Concentrate on One Good Glaze
Copper Red Glazes
Crazing and Bacteria: Is There a Hazard?
Crazing in Stoneware Glazes: Treating the Causes, Not the Symptoms
Creating a Non-Glaze Ceramic Slip or Engobe
Creating Your Own Budget Glaze
Crystal Glazes: Understanding the Process and Materials
Deflocculants: A Detailed Overview
Demonstrating Glaze Fit Issues to Students
Diagnosing a Casting Problem at a Sanitaryware Plant
Drying Ceramics Without Cracks
Duplicating Albany Slip
Duplicating AP Green Fireclay
Electric Hobby Kilns: What You Need to Know
Fighting the Glaze Dragon
Firing Clay Test Bars
Firing: What Happens to Ceramic Ware in a Firing Kiln
First You See It Then You Don't: Raku Glaze Stability
Fixing a glaze that does not stay in suspension
Formulating a body using clays native to your area
Formulating a Clear Glaze Compatible with Chrome-Tin Stains
Formulating a Porcelain
Formulating Ash and Native-Material Glazes
G1214M Cone 5-7 20x5 glossy transparent glaze
G1214W Cone 6 transparent glaze
G1214Z Cone 6 matte glaze
G1916M Cone 06-04 transparent glaze
Getting the Glaze Color You Want: Working With Stains
Glaze and Body Pigments and Stains in the Ceramic Tile Industry
Glaze Chemistry Basics - Formula, Analysis, Mole%, Unity
Glaze chemistry using a frit of approximate analysis
Glaze Recipes: Formulate and Make Your Own Instead
Glaze Types, Formulation and Application in the Tile Industry
Having Your Glaze Tested for Toxic Metal Release
High Gloss Glazes
Hire Us for a 3D Printing Project
How a Material Chemical Analysis is Done
How desktop INSIGHT Deals With Unity, LOI and Formula Weight
How to Find and Test Your Own Native Clays
I have always done it this way!
Inkjet Decoration of Ceramic Tiles
Is Your Fired Ware Safe?
Leaching Cone 6 Glaze Case Study
Limit Formulas and Target Formulas

Make Your Own Ball Mill Stand
Making Glaze Testing Cones
Monoporosa or Single Fired Wall Tiles
Organic Matter in Clays: Detailed Overview
Outdoor Weather Resistant Ceramics
Painting Glazes Rather Than Dipping or Spraying
Particle Size Distribution of Ceramic Powders
Porcelain Tile, Vitrified Tile
Rationalizing Conflicting Opinions About Plasticity
Ravenscrag Slip is Born
Recylcing Scrap Clay
Reducing the Firing Temperature of a Glaze From Cone 10 to 6
Simple Physical Testing of Clays
Single Fire Glazing
Soluble Salts in Minerals: Detailed Overview
Some Keys to Dealing With Firing Cracks
Stoneware Casting Body Recipes
Substituting Cornwall Stone
Super-Refined Terra Sigillata
The Chemistry, Physics and Manufacturing of Glaze Frits
The Effect of Glaze Fit on Fired Ware Strength
The Four Levels on Which to View Ceramic Glazes
The Majolica Earthenware Process
The Potter's Prayer
The Right Chemistry for a Cone 6 MgO Matte
The Trials of Being the Only Technical Person in the Club
The Whining Stops Here: A Realistic Look at Clay Bodies
Those Unlabelled Bags and Buckets
Tiles and Mosaics for Potters
Toxicity of Firebricks Used in Ovens
Trafficking in Glaze Recipes
Understanding Ceramic Materials
Understanding Ceramic Oxides
Understanding Glaze Slurry Properties
Understanding the Deflocculation Process in Slip Casting
Understanding the Terra Cotta Slip Casting Recipes In North America
Understanding Thermal Expansion in Ceramic Glazes
Unwanted Crystallization in a Cone 6 Glaze
Volcanic Ash
What Determines a Glaze's Firing Temperature?
What is a Mole, Checking Out the Mole
What is the Glaze Dragon?
Where do I start in understanding glazes?
Why Textbook Glazes Are So Difficult
Working with children

Low Budget Testing of Ceramic Glazes

Description

There is more to glazes than their visual character, they have other physical properties like hardness, thermal expansion, leachability, chemistry and they exhibit many defects. Here are some simple tests.

Article

What if you could greatly increase the quality of your fired ware by only small changes? Would you do it? Testing it thoroughly is a key ingredient. But mention the idea of testing a glaze and 99% of us think in terms of dipping a test tile and firing it to see how it looks. Many have learned that there is often little correlation between how a glaze looks on a little test tile compared with how it looks when used on ware, thus they tend to put little effort into testing. However if you already have a glaze in production, or have made an adjustment to an existing one, you are likely willing to expend much more effort to evaluate it fully.

Raw and fired glazes exhibit many properties that both production and end users are knowingly or unknowingly concerned with. These include slurry properties, dry hardness, behavior of the melt, freezing characteristics, hardness and scratch resistance of the fired glass, compatibility of host glaze and added colorants, leach resistance, glaze fit with the body, clarity of the fired glass, etc. Certain factors such susceptibility to material change and varying firing conditions are more difficult to measure.

Most people and companies do not have fancy glaze testing equipment to evaluate these properties. It is to these that this article is directed, there is much you can do to greatly increase your confidence in the true 'quality' of your product. Testing your glaze thoroughly is doubly important if you are using one or two base glazes because, in a sense, you have all your 'quality eggs in one basket'. We 'hoot' a lot about the advantages of focusing your efforts on one base glossy and matte recipe and altering these to make whatever you want. Thus the following tests all assume and depend on the fact that you are testing the transparent base without any colorants, opacifiers, or other additives. Remember that improving the base improves every recipe that is based on it.

Here are some tests you should consider:

Related Information

Feldspars, the primary high temperature flux, melt less than you think.


A cone 8 comparative flow tests of Custer, G-200 and i-minerals high soda and high potassium feldspars. Notice how little the pure materials are moving (bottom), even though they are fired to cone 11. In addition, the sodium feldspars move better than the potassium ones. But feldspars do their real fluxing work when they can interact with other materials. Notice how well they flow with only 10% frit added (top), even though they are being fired three cones lower.

Confirming slip viscosity using a paint-measuring device


Measuring ceramic slip viscosity using a Ford cup - When is it practical?

A Ford Cup is being using to measure the viscosity of a casting clip. These are available at paint supply stores. This is a #4 (4.25mm opening), it holds 100ml and drains water in 10 seconds. This casting slip has a specific gravity of 1.79. Having made it many times, our experience indicates 40-seconds as a drain target (after high energy mixing). In production situations, the seconds-value this test produces enables an audit-trail for quality control and problem solving. When first mixing a slurry, under-deflocculating and eye-balling the viscosity is typical, during that period the slurry gels while draining and Ford cup measurements are not valid. When the mixing process has been perfected and viscosity stabilized the Ford Cup becomes practical.

Don’t overthink this type of measurement or the type of cup or opening size (you can even make your own cup). You must still determine the optimal flow rate based on experience with your process. This technique is more about maintaining to ongoing adherence to a standard you define.

A batch of fired clay test bars in the Plainsman Clays lab


A batch of fired test bars that have just been boiled and weighed, from these we get dry shrinkage, fired shrinkage and porosity. Each pile is a different mix, fired to various temperatures. Test runs are on the left, production runs on the right. Each bar is stamped with a code number and specimen number (the different specimens are the different temperatures). The measurements have all been entered into our group account at insight-live.com. Now I have to lay out and photograph each pile and upload the picture into the code-numbered record. Upon doing so I compare color and tests results to make decisions on what to do next (documenting these in insight-live).

Links

Articles Limit Formulas and Target Formulas
Glaze chemistries for each type of glaze have a typical look to them that enables us to spot ones that are non-typical. Limit and target formulas are useful to us if we keep in perspective their proper use.
Articles A Low Cost Tester of Glaze Melt Fluidity
This device to measure glaze melt fluidity helps you better understand your glazes and materials and solve all sorts of problems.
Projects Tests
Projects Frits
Troubles Glaze Marks or Scratches
Questions to ask and strategies to try to deal with glaze cutlery marking, that is, glazes that are too easily scatched by metal.
Glossary Characterization
In ceramics, this normally refers to the process of doing physical or chemical testing on a raw material to accurately describe it in terms of similar ones.
By Tony Hansen
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