An ordinary white mug: More difficult to make than you think!

This is M340S with G2934 matte white outside and G2926B glossy white inside (both have 10% zircopax). Consider what can go wrong. Zircon glazes love to crawl. I either add CMC gum to make it a base coat (or use a combination of tin oxide and zircopax (like G3926C). The clay has granular manganese added to produce the speck, if accidentally over-fired, even half a cone, it will bloat. And the clay body: The outer glaze is ugly on dark-burning clays. And it is drab on porcelains. It does not even look good on this same body if the speckle is not there. Another difficulty: Controlling the degree of matteness. I blend in about 20% of the glossy, otherwise it would fire too matte. And the firing schedule: PLC6DS - its drop-and-hold step is critical, without it the surface would be full of pinholes. Another problem: If the kiln is heavily loaded and cools slower than the programmed ramp-down, the surface will be too matte. Finally, glaze thickness: If it is too thin it will look washed out and ugly. Too thick it will bubble and look pasty.

Related Pictures

Souvenir mugs that demonstrate incredible workmanship, glaze recipes, use of decals

These porcelain mugs are sold at many tourist shops on the Alaskan cruize circuit. Made in China of course. But their quality is astounding. And they teach multiple lessons to potters - great skill in the use of decals (even inside), meeting different glazes at the rims, evenness of application, layering, the use of wax resist, etc. They likely have a glossy and matte base glaze and add stains (to get the black, blue, red, white, green). Notice they have an iron red (lower right) that is stable enough not to run and host an even more fluid melt second layer. They also have a stoney yet functional matte white (bottom left). You can make dipping glaze versions of all of these:
Black glossy: G3914A and G2926BL
Black matte: G2934BL
Iron Red: G3948A
White stoney matte: G2934Y2
Glossy colors: Add stains to G2926B
Matte colors: Add stains to G2934

Wedging manganese speckle into a cone 6 buff stoneware

This is actually quite easy to do: Just wedge the clay over the granular manganese spread out on the board, when the board is clean turn the slug sideways and cut and layer about 20 times (to get 1 million layers). Then wedge normally. Only 0.2% manganese is needed (as a percentage of the dry clay). Since pugged clay contains 20% water it is easy to calculate the dry weight of this piece. For example, suppose this weighs 2 kg: 80% of that is 1.6 kg or 1600g. 0.2% of 1600 is 3.2 grams. Shown is the kind of mug I get. The outside glaze is G2934Y silky matte (opacified with tin and Zircopax) and the inside glaze is G2926BW glossy white. It was fired at cone 6 using the PLC6DS schedule.

Links

Glossary	Matte Glaze Random material mixes that melt well overwhelmingly want to be glossy, creating a matte glaze that is also functional is not an easy task.
Recipes	G2934 - Matte Glaze Base for Cone 6 A base MgO matte glaze recipe fires to a hard utilitarian surface and has very good working properties. Blend in the glossy if it is too matte.
Recipes	G2926B - Cone 6 Whiteware/Porcelain transparent glaze A base transparent glaze recipe created by Tony Hansen for Plainsman Clays, it fires high gloss and ultra clear with low melt mobility.

Got a Question?

Buy me a coffee and we can talk