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Super white translucent porcelains are expensive, approaching $200/box in some countries! They are tipping point bodies, difficult to make, and quality issues are common. These issues make the idea of making your own clay body feasible. Yet one potter told me this was a non-option, much "too difficult". Some time later, after more issue, she agreed to try, using a recipe similar to L3778D. She weighed out the materials, slurried up the mix and dewatered on a super-clean plaster bat.
These best thing happened upon making test pieces. They bloated (blistered).
Mix slurry better
Add more nepheline
Beauty of mixing your own.
Uncontaminated plaster batt.
Mix well.
That sounds good to me! I completely agree about becoming a much better potter because I’m getting to know my material so intimately. I have been learning SO much.
With a good propeller mixer you can mix 10 or 20 gallons at a time.

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White agglomerates of New Zealand kaolin (NZK) have ruined both glaze and body (Zero4 fritware). Both were slurried up by propeller mixing (the latter dewatered on a plaster table). But in both cases, the action of our lab mixer, a very capable device, was not enough to break up the NZK agglomerates! The glaze appears to be the easiest to fix: Sieve it at 100 mesh. But does that really work? No. The particles are 10-20 times smaller than the openings so countless agglomerates could easily remain intact. The body is another matter. It is just about impossible to sieve because it contains significant VeeGum that gels the slurry. However, I am a potter and don't need to make thousands of gallons. Blender mixing is the answer, on high speed, it smashes the agglomerates in seconds. Even for many gallons it is easy to process the slurry in batches using the 2 litre jar of my mixer.
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