When we finally hit an iceberg, perhaps the big question should be: "How did we get away with doing that for so long?"
Tipping point glaze recipes and practices are like this. I want to use those reactive glazes, so I need them to work. A quick test or two confirms what I want to see. That's the visible part of the recipe iceberg. But below the waterline is all that pesky recipe logic, material sense and glaze chemistry that bring up questions about the recipe before I even try it. And the trigger-happy glaze nerds who raise alarm bells about safety about glazes even though they have never actually mixed them up. I don't really want to hear about those things; I just want to double or triple layer those colorful runny glazes that look so nice on that social media post.

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The author of this new book does what I do, but his readers are industrial technicians and engineers who work at a large scale. But, like us potters, they crowd tipping points too, then run into problems and wonder what went wrong!
But the basic principles of ceramic fabrication are the same for potters and small manufacturers. In ceramic manufacturing, failure rarely begins when the defect becomes visible. It often starts much earlier—while production still appears stable. Small deviations accumulate. Operators compensate. Settings are adjusted. Operating margins gradually reduce. The process continues to produce, but its stability is becoming increasingly dependent on correction. This book is about recognizing those hidden risks before they become visible failures.
| Glossary |
Tipping point
Why do ceramic processes seem to work for years and then suddenly fail? Obvious and not-so-obvious tipping points in recipes, materials and methods can trigger production disasters. |
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