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Tin is super expensive, so how much should you use in a clear glaze to get a white? It is a trade-off of cost and whiteness. Nothing else can make a glaze this white and opaque and these low percentages. Consider this: A tin-opacified glaze may only need to be half as thick as a zircon opacified one. Tin has other advantages over Zircopax. First, the percentage required could be half or one third. That takes us down to four or six times less tin being needed (Zircopax is five times less expensive at time of writing). These two factors mean thermal expansion mis-fits between body and glaze start off four or six times less likely to produce shivering or crazing! And tin affects the melt fluidity and thermal expansion half as much. On these samples, the higher percentage of tin seems to produce an even better glossy surface. Crawling is a classic issue with high-zircon glazes (because it impedes melt fluidity, that is what holds super thickly applied majolica glazes on the ware). Tin is the opposite; even though this recipe is high in strontium, and thus has a high surface tension, there is no indication of crawling with the tin addition. A final issue is cutlery marking, a common problem with zircon-opacified glazes. But not with tin oxide.
Materials |
Tin Oxide
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