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These seem to work well for brushing glazes whether the bristles are fine or coarse, stiff or soft. The key to their utility is the shape. An ordinary brush, when dipped into glaze, pulls together - minimizing the total load it can hold and the breadth of stroke it can make. But these stay fanned. Each bristle has access to more glaze and thus the brush can deliver more. The fan shape also assists in spreading the glaze evenly over the surface, after all, that is the purpose, spreading evenly not decorating. A fan brush can be dipped and brushed in rapid succession, delivering a lot of glaze to the surface. And, these brushes are much easier to clean. Of course, these only work if the glaze contains enough gum to retard its drying and gel enough to stay in place. These were purchased at Michaels, they are high quality and inexpensive.
A 500ml jar of this was made using 340g powder, 440g water, 5g CMC gum and 6g of Veegum. This is the most VeeGum that would likely ever be used in this type of glaze. But it suspends and gels the slurry well. This glaze must be gelled because it contains no clay to suspend it. But there is a problem: The amount of gel needed means it is impossible to remove the agglomerates of CMC and VeeGum by blender mixing (the slurry simply won't move enough in the jar to expose all of it to the propeller). That means either ball milling for an extended period or creating an initial batch that only includes the CMC gum and mixing that in the blender very thoroughly first. Then, on high speed, slowly pour in the VeeGum until it gels enough to suspend everything (don't add too much or it will over-gel immediately or overnight). Regular brushes won't load the gelled glazes. But a fan brush like this works surprisingly well and creates and even laydown (very important with crystal glazes). If you have only used commercial brushing glazes you may take the CMC gum they contain for granted. Dipping glazes made by potters normally contain no gum. After dipping the bisque typically absorbs the water quickly and the glaze dries to the touch in seconds. Trying to brush such a glaze would be impossible. But adding gum slows the drying dramatically and enables it to flow beautifully for brushing.
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