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Black Coring
Bleeding colors
Bloating
Chrome Flashing in Ceramic Glazes
Clouding in Ceramic Glazes
Cracking of Clays During Drying
Crawling
Dunting and Cracking of Clay Bodies During Firing
Foaming of Ceramicd Glaze Slurries
Glaze Blisters
Glaze Crazing
Glaze is Off-Color
Glaze Marks or Scratches
Glaze Pinholes, Pitting
Glaze Shivering
Glaze Slurry is Difficult to Use or Settling
Leaking of Fired Ceramics
Lime Popping
Orange Peel Surface
Over Firing of Ceramic Glazes and Bodies
Powdering, Cracking and Settling Glazes
Runny Ceramic Glazes
Specking on Ceramic Ware
Splitting at the Plastic Stage
Staining of Fired Ceramic Glazes
Uneven Glaze Coverage
Warping

Foaming of Ceramicd Glaze Slurries

Ceramic glaze slurries can sometimes generate enough foam that it becomes difficult to apply an even layer to a surface. What can you do?

Details

Some ceramic glaze suspensions will foam as they are mixed and used. This is problematic since the bubbles prevent the laydown of an even surface. The reason for the foaming relates to issues with particle agglomerations, surface tension and incompletely wetted particle surfaces hanging on to air bubbles.

Glazes containing spodumene or calcined kaolin, for example, can have this problem. Or glazes containing materials having surface treated particles (e.g. colorants that are normally unstable like red copper oxide). A possible solution is power-mixing a slurry to input enough energy to wet all particle surfaces. Or mixing the slurry using hot water. A more drastic solution, practical for potters, is washing the offending material (by slurrying it in plenty of water, settling it, pouring off the water and drying it out, e.g. for spodumene). Another option is to substitute the offending material for another less troublesome one that can supply the same oxides, glaze chemistry is normally needed to be able to do this (a common example is the use of a frit to supply an oxide, like lithium, rather than a raw material like spodumene).

Foaming glazes can be a problem in industry and surfactants (defoaming additives) are commonly available and industrial technicians know how to use them. Some of these agents are just common household products (see the Wikipedia link below).

Related Information

Links

URLs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defoamer
Defoaming agents at Wikipedia
URLs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactant
Surfactants at Wikipedia
URLs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defoamer
Defoamers on Wikipedia
Glossary Suspension
In ceramics, glazes are slurries. They consist of water and undissolved powders kept in suspension by clay particles. You have much more control over the properties than you might think.
Glossary Ceramic Glaze Defects
Ceramic glaze defects include things like pinholes, blisters, crazing, shivering, leaching, crawling, cutlery marking, clouding and color problems.
By Tony Hansen
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