Why would a glaze turn into a jelly like this?

This is one of the things Gerstley Borate does to glazes (when its percentage is high enough). This slurry has a high water content and should be far more watery. It is also highly thixotropic - this can be stirred vigorously to thin it and yet within seconds it turns back to jelly again. This was deflocculated with Darvan yesterday and it was stable enough to dip bisque ware - but overnight salts have gone into solution and it is no longer dispersed. It also dries very slowly on bisque ware. What can be done with a mess like this? Replace the Gerstley Borate with something else. Gerstley Borate sources B₂O₃, it can be supplied using frits or Ulexite (glaze chemistry calculations are needed to juggle the recipe), this can be done in an account at insight-live.com.

Related Pictures

Gerstley Borate 50:30:20 glaze. How could this have worked?

This picture has its own page with more detail, click here to see it.

This recipe, G2826A, a base transparent recipe having 50% Gerstley Borate plus 20% kaolin, is "jelly city". Even with 2.5g of Darvan deflocculant in this jar it is still thick enough to require pushing this tile down into it! Even then, it needs 5 seconds to build up enough thickness. And then does not even cover properly. People have suffered with this popular fluid-melt recipe for 50 years or more just to get the surface variegation it produces. They add all manner of colorants and opacifiers to it. And endure its incessant running onto kiln shelves, bubbling and clouding. It is time to just stop this "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" of ceramic materials! And use different base transparents that employ frits to source the boron (B₂O₃). Same chemistry, just a better recipe: G2826A1. Then just add rutile or titanium to restore the variegation. Are you a masochist and still want to be punished? Then at least use the G2826A2 recipe with Gillespie Borate instead.

Videos

Media

Getting Frustrated With a 55% Gerstley Borate Glaze
I show you why people love/hate this material and how I substituted it for Ulexite in this crazy recipe to make a far easier-to-use slurry that fires identical.

Links

Glossary	Glaze Gelling Glaze slurries can gel if they contain soluble materials that flocculate the suspension. Gelling is a real problem since it requires water additions that increase shrinkage.
Materials	Gerstley Borate Gerstley Borate was a natural source of boron for ceramic glazes. It was plastic and melted clear at 1750F. Now we need to replace it. How?

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