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Kaolins and ball clays can vary in many ways. Yet clay bodies depend on them for plasticity, fired whiteness, smoothness, slurry properties, etc. When that happens, plastic and casting bodies suddenly have different working and firing characteristics that customers notice. Your reputation is hurt when others have to tell you there is an issue.
Problems with material variability and contamination are guaranteed. The minimal, often non-applicable test results shown on the supplier reports are never enough. Don't end up using an entire shipment in multiple products only to find out it had issues. Or, when disaster does happen, don't be the company that has no traceability.
When done right, your lab monitors all incoming shipments in one searchable place. Your lab personnel work with production to do material lot tracking. They work with purchasing to keep suppliers aware that you are testing. They know what tests to do on each class of material (and which have been problematic). The result: Incoming materials vary but your staff compensates recipes and processes so that customers see a consistent product. Shown below is a screenshot of how one company manages this using an account at insight-live.com.
Here is what to do next: Study this example of testing an incoming load of kaolin.
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Testing a New Load of EP Kaolin
Kaolins can vary in many ways. Yet they are the foundation of all porcelain and light stoneware clay body recipes. It is vital to test each incoming shipment of material. Problematic brands can even require some testing on every pallet. |
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