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Tony Hansen

Tony Hansen is the author of Digitalfire Insight, Digitalfire Reference Library and Insight-Live.com, he is a long-time potter, ceramic lab-technician and body and glaze developer.

Details

Tony Hansen is a potter, researcher, author, software engineer and developer of ceramic body and glaze recipes. He has used Digitalfire Corporation as a medium to distribute his software and knowledge products. He has had a long and close association with Plainsman Clays, they have provided him with a well equipped lab and studio and free use of anything in the factory and warehouse (hundreds of different kinds of clays and materials).

His accomplishments include:

Desktop Digitalfire Insight glaze chemistry software. Using it people were able to predict the fired properties of glaze recipes. This enabled fixing, adjusting and developing glazes. Developed in the early 1980s and used worldwide education, hobby and manufacturing using Windows, OSX and Linux until today.

Tony was a very early adopter of the internet as a medium to learn and understand ceramics. He gave the first internet-connected-with-video-projector presentation to the oldest professional organization in North America, the American Ceramic Society. He was among the first in North American to employ online electronic commerce during the middle and late 1990s.

Digitalfire 4Sight Ceramic Lab Database software for DOS. Developed in the late 1980s and used past 2010 by many ceramic technicians. Tony used it to record hundreds of thousands of lab measurements during 25 years of body and glaze R&D and QC.

Digitalfire Reference Library. He developed a content management system enabled organizing information in unique hierarchy that encourages understanding the multiple levels at which ceramic production challenges can be approached (understanding materials and bodies and glazes from the physical, mineralogical and chemistry levels). Google has long top-ranked hundreds of the pages (frequently ahead of the manufacturers of the products in question).

Digitalfire Insight-Live.com. Since 2012. An online version (and superset) of the combined functions 4Sight and desktop Insight. Developers sign-on for accounts and manage their information according to the principles developed by Tony. Tony was able to migrate three decades of data into this system.

Pottery. Tony has always made pottery. Every size and shape. At many temperature ranges. From hundreds of clay bodies and glazes. Between 1990 and 2020 he gave thousands of pieces away.

Body and material characterization and testing procedures. Tony has developed a system of testing and reporting to make it easy to compare their firing and drying properties. It does not require expensive lab equipment and enables anyone willing to get their hands dirty to learn to understand materials and develop quality bodies and glazes from commercial or native materials.

Trouble shooting. Tony has developed and documented online a system to assist technicians in diagnosing and fixing body and glaze manufacturing defects and problems.

Glaze recipes. Recipes Tony developed and documented, especially base transparents at low, medium and high temperature, are used and sold around the world by potters and manufacturers.

Materials. Tony developed Alberta Slip and Ravenscrag Slip to demonstrate the value of his formulation principles (these are low-melting natural clays mined on the prairies that have been conditioned with refined minerals so that they form stoneware glazes by themselves, they appear in a wide range of recipes and textbooks). Tony also documented his development of Boraq (using Insight software and a trip to Turkey to research borates), it is a Gerstley Borate substitute.

Clay bodies. Tony has developed all the clay bodies at Plainsman Clays since the 1970s. These include terra cottas, stonewares, casting bodies, porcelain, sculpture and modelling clays and many others.

Porcelains. Tony has researched, developed and documented many hundreds of porcelain recipes. He has publicly documented his procedures. Examples are Polar Ice (a super plastic, highly translucent porcelain), Zero3 (low fire fritted porcelain with matching glaze), Zero3 stoneware (a low fire stoneware with matching glaze).

Engobes. Tony developed base engobes for low, medium and high temperature and documented key principles, the understanding of which, enable matching them to bodies (e.g. thixotropy, viscosity, specific gravity).
Books. Tony wrote the book "The Magic of Fire", it was one of the first PDF eBooks sold online in the late 1990s. It documented a wide range of his research and was used around the world as a textbook in university ceramic programs.

3D Printing. Tony does not print with clay, he prints parts using standard PLA filament on inexpensive printers. His advances enable evolving existing production methods. Production steps can be omitted, better precision achieved, new shapes and methods become possible. Everything he does is well documented in the reference library and his methods are explained well enough to be accessible to anyone, especially potters.

Related Information

Why does Tony Hansen take months to unload his kilns?

I love making pottery, but I love the technical side more. I searched for all the test specimens in this load of cone 10 reduction ware first, then pushed it back in and forgot about it. For three months! I really anticipate the test results (I am developing and adjusting many of bodies and glazes at any given time). The data and pictures for them go into my account at insight-live.com, it enables me to compare the chemistry and physical properties of recipes and materials side-by-side. That teaches me which roads to abandon and which ones to pursue. My last kiln went back in for six weeks, so things are getting worse!

1970s cone 10 reduction stoneware bowl by Tony Hansen

This bowl was made by Tony Hansen in the middle to late 1970s. The body was H41G (now H441G), it had large 20 mesh iron stone concretions that produced very large iron blotches in reduction firing. Luke Lindoe loved to use these clays to show off the power of the cone 10 reduction firing process that he was promoting in the 1960s and 70s.

The New 2020 Digitalfire Reference Library is Here

The Digitalfire Reference Library on desktop and smartphone

It has morphed into a webapp, reflexive and menu-driven (based on Twitter Bootstrap). It now employs permanent URLs. And pages have logical, and hierarchical URLs (e.g. digitalfire.com/oxide/cao, digitalfire.com/material/feldspar). It correctly forwards 5000+ old URLs. Terms from the glossary automatically hotlink throughout (as do code-numbers for recipes, tests and firing schedules). The search field in the menu bar is area-specific (or all-area at digitalfire.com/home). Still no ads and no tracking. The UI displays from server #1, it calls the database API on #2, the email system on #3, media from #4 and insight-live.com from server #5! So it is super fast, flexible and expandable. There are new areas (e.g. projects, pictures, typecodes). Media displays better. Every page still has a contact form, so you can ask any question anywhere. What till you see what's coming!

Ravenscrag Celadon and silky matte glazed mug by Tony Hansen

The outside glaze on this cone 10R mug (made of Plainsman H550) is simply an Alberta Slip:Ravenscrag Slip 50:50 mix with 5% added Ferro Frit 3134 (the Alberta Slip is calcined). This produces a stunning celadon with great working and application properties. Inside glaze: Ravenscrag Slip 90%, talc 10% (a matte having an extra ordinary silky texture). Learn more at ravenscrag.com.

Plainsman Polar Ice, P300, M370 and M340 by Tony Hansen

Much effort is expended at Plainsman Clays to develop good transparent base glazes. Far left is a white cone 6 porcelain made from New Zealand kaolin, a super-white-burning bentonite, feldspar and silica. P300 is a kaolin-only cone 6 whiteware. M370 is a kaolin-ball clay whiteware. The P300 and M370 recipes contain feldspar, silica and bentonite also. M340 is a buff stoneware, it is made from locally mined stoneware clays with no additions of feldspar or silica or any refined clays.

M390 mugs with Alberta Slip based glazes by Tony Hansen

These cone 6 mugs use an 80:20 Alberta Slip:Frit blend inside and out (the outside one has added rutile). Made around 2014. The incised wheat decoration as a dead giveaway that the mug is made by Tony. He has made this type of mug for decades and there is a good reason: continuity of testing. By making the same kind of ware each time he tests a clay, going through the same procedures he has done a thousand times, he can more easily spot differences in the way they perform.

1980s large reduction fired lampbase by Tony Hansen

This was typical of many made during the 1980s and sold in a gallery in Brandon, Manitoba. Tony was inspired by the work of John Porter and emulated many of his techniques. This is a dark burning iron stoneware clay, H440, fired at cone 10 reduction.

Luke Lindoe in 1971

He was the founder of Plainsman Clays. My dad had just built the Plainsman Clays factory for him and I began working there in 1972. He was a well known artist potter and sculptor at the time, having come out of the pottery production industry in the area. He got me started along the fascinating road of understanding the physics of clays. He was a true "plains man", interested in the geology (notice the skulls, these inspired the Plainsman logo). He got me started doing physical testing of raw clays (that he was finding everywhere). I was blown away by the fact that I could assess a completely new material and judge its suitability for many types of ceramic products and processes by doing the simple physical tests he showed me. It got started writing software to log the data for that back in the 1980s, that eventually led to digitalfire.com and Insight-live.com.

Tony Hansen signature - pre 2000

This was used until about 2000. Any numbers relate to the type of clay being used (often a test). In this case, the body is a test mix of Plainsman H431. The year is 1981.

The recipe mixing area of Tony Hansen

Tony's lab work area of mineral and chemical powders for mixing test glazes and clay bodies. Stoneware and earthenware glazes are made from dozens (even hundreds) of commodity industrial mineral powders.

Magic of Fire book

A book published by Tony Hansen (no longer available). It explained why we need to think about materials (and the bodies and glazes made from them) as more than just powders. They have physical, chemical and mineralogical presences, a knowledge of which provides better control in ceramic production. This was the first widely read book to show how, using this knowledge and glaze chemistry, readers could solve all sorts of problems. It showcased the real value of the oxide viewpoint in ceramics and explained how to use Digitalfire Insight and Foresight software in each scenario. From 2000-2014, the book was used as courseware in universities around the world. In 2015 it was superseded by the online Digitalfire Reference Library (which is a superset of its content).

1981 large stoneware bowl made my Tony Hansen

The clay is Plainsman H431. Fired at cone 10R. Tony learned how to make these bowls from John Porter in the early 1970s. They were glazed on the inside with the rough, bare clay surface on the outside. Decoration was done by a wax resist technique. The glaze is a silky dolomite matte with rutile and a little cobalt added for the powder blue color.

Tony Hansen signature - post 2000

Any numbers relate to the type of clay being used (often a test). In this case, the body is Plainsman P300. The fluted foot ring (for better draining in the dishwasher) is also a tell-tale sign the mug might be made by Tony.

Ceramic business card of Tony Hansen

Links

URLs	https://digitalfire.com/4sight/material/index.html Digitalfire Reference Database
URLs	https://digitalfire.com/Tony_Hansen/index.html Tony Hansen
URLs	http://m.youtube.com/user/tonywilliamhansen YouTube channel for Tony Hansen
Glossary	Digitalfire Foresight Database software for DOS made by Digitalfire from 1988 until 2005 and was used to by ceramic technicians to catalog recipes, materials, test results and pictures.
Glossary	Insight-Live A database website where potters and ceramic technician account holders enter their recipes, materials, pictures, test procedures, firing schedules, etc.
Glossary	Digitalfire Insight A downloadable program for Windows, Mac, Linux for doing classic ceramic glaze chemistry. It has been used around the world since the early 1980s.