Recipes

Recipes here are for demo purposes. Read the explanatory information about how to adjust, how it was formulated, links to similar ones, links to ones earlier or later in the series. There are an unlimited number of ways to make any one of them fail, learn to understand glazes, learn to adjust recipes to work in your circumstances (rather than throw them out and search for one that might have even more problems). Get a good base that does not craze on your clay, that melts right, does not leach, is compatible with your colors, does not settle in the bucket, applies well, etc. Once you have that base you can color it, opacify it, variegate it. But remember, Digitalfire has never been about trading recipes, we teach people to see glazes as oxide formulas instead. Our ultimate hope is that you will learn the chemistry so well that you can use software to demonstrate problems with a glaze by posting here. That would vindicate the value of glaze chemistry. Be warned, "the illicit trade in glaze recipes" promises a pot of gold that is not there, it will take you down a 20 year road of wasted time.

The industrial ceramic world generally revolves around fancy production machines. But behind the scenes engineers and technicians are the real heroes, they supply the body and glaze recipes that make the machines work and they adapt these to the requirements of the machine. Actually, in most cases this is not true, suppliers actually provide ready-made recipes, the factories just use them and complain to supplier technical support when there are problems. In the pottery world, the opposite situation exists. There is a 'recipe culture', tens-of-thousands are available in textbooks and on the internet. Many people carefully guard their recipes, adapting their production techniques and equipment to them (and often exercising great patience tolerating less-than-ideal behaviors).

In both cases the recipes are not generally 'understood' by production staff. That means they are not controlled. People do not know why each ingredient is in a recipe or even what each is. They generally do not understand how a recipe might be adjusted to fix a problem, or, be better adapted to their production situation. Most critically, they do not understand how to evaluate problems and ask the right questions. This is the reason why we recommend a material-centered ceramic knowledge universe and a production situation where technical staff at a facility have control and understanding. Understanding materials means knowing their mineralogy, their physical properties, and most import, their chemistry. Using these materials in recipes means it is necessary to understand how they interact and contribute their physical properties and oxide chemistry. Recipes in this section are presented with links to material and oxide information, putting them into the proper context. We intend that you adjust any recipe you find here to adapt it to your situation.

Related Information

Links

Articles	Where do I start in understanding glazes? Break your addiction to online recipes that don't work or bottled expensive glazes that you could DIY. Learn why glazes fire as they do. Why each material is used. How to create perfect dipping and brushing properties. Even some chemistry.
Articles	Glaze Recipes: Formulate and Make Your Own Instead The only way you will ever get the glaze you really need is to formulate your own. The longer you stay on the glaze recipe treadmill the more time you waste.
Articles	The Four Levels on Which to View Ceramic Glazes By knowing which level to view a glaze from you are much better equipped to understand and control it. The levels are process, recipe, material, oxide.
Articles	Concentrate on One Good Glaze It is better to understand and have control of one good base glaze than be at the mercy of dozens of imported recipes that do not work. There is a lot more to being a good glaze than fired appearance.
Articles	Why Textbook Glazes Are So Difficult The trade is glaze recipes has spawned generations of potters going up blind alleys trying recipes that don't work and living with ones that are much more trouble than they are worth. It is time to leave this behind and take control.
Articles	Trafficking in Glaze Recipes The trade is glaze recipes has spawned generations of potters going up blind alleys trying recipes that don't work and living with ones that are much more trouble than they are worth. It is time to leave this behind and take control.
Glossary	Batch Recipe In ceramics, glazes are made by weighing out dry ceramic powdered materials to fill a recipe. Batch recipes often are a combination of a base recipe and additions.
Media	Desktop Insight 5A - Glaze Formula to Batch Calculations Learn to use a non-unity calculation to convert a formula into a batch recipe using theoretical and real-world materials. Retotal, round-off and make a side-by-side report.

By Tony Hansen
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