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Examples of how we use glaze calculations (in an Insight-Live.com account) to replace Gerstley Borate with other materials, especially frits, in various glaze recipes. In doing so we take the opportunity to improve the recipe in other ways (e.g. reduce thermal expansion, improve slurry properties, reduce bubbling and crawling).
URLs |
https://insight-live.com/insight/share.php?z=HzyNzj9ELs
Replacing the Gerstley Borate in recipes containing 50% or more of it Many recipes were built on bases employing exceptionally high percentages of Gerstley Borate. At medium temperatures these melt fluid transparents hosted additions of colorants, variegators and opacifiers. At low fire they were used as transparents over underglaze decoration. |
URLs |
https://insight-live.com/insight/share.php?z=6TesQXNkkA
Removing the Gerstley Borate from Randy's Red glaze |
URLs |
https://insight-live.com/insight/share.php?z=oLZXQTy9TR
Floating Blue - Substituting Gerstley Borate The original floating blue recipe shown side-by-side with variations made using frits instead of Gerstley Borate (and titanium and iron instead of rutile). |
URLs |
https://insight-live.com/insight/share.php?z=td5N6ka2kx
Learn about common Gerstley Borate recipes This home page enables viewing the common glossy glaze types, both recipes and calculated chemistry. Notes to help understand them are included. |
Materials |
Gerstley Borate
Gerstley Borate was a natural source of boron for ceramic glazes. It was plastic and melted clear at 1750F. Now we need to replace it. How? |
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We Developed the G2926B Transparent Glaze by Doing Four Unique Things
How I found a ceramic glaze recipe on Facebook, substituted a frit for the Gerstley Borate, added the extra SiO2 it needed and got a fabulous more durable cone 6 clear. |
Media |
Getting Frustrated With a 55% Gerstley Borate Glaze
I show you why people love/hate this material and how I substituted it for Ulexite in this crazy recipe to make a far easier-to-use slurry that fires identical. |
Media |
Use Insight-live to substitute materials in a recipe
We will substitute wollastonite for whiting and a frit for Gerstley borate in the G2571A cone 10 matte while maintaining the chemistry of the original recipe. |
Typecodes |
Common Gerstley Borate glaze recipes
Many of the glazes in use are built on common base recipes. And there are some universal recipes that almost everyone uses, we may have already converted those for use with frits. |
Typecodes |
Gerstley Borate Substitutes
Many development efforts to create Gerstley Borate substitutes took place during the early 2000s (the initial period when the demise of Gerstley Borate appeared imminent). A number of companies, including Laguna Clays itself, produced and sold these for many years. When Laguna secured another stockpile at the mine and began producing the original material again, interest in substitutes gradually waned. However, the sudden dramatic price increase in 2023 appears to have initiated the process again. Gillespie Borate appears to be the only viable and visible substitute now. Thus, the substitutes listed here are mostly no longer made. Other high-boron materials shown are also no longer available. We continue to recommend sourcing B2O3 from frits instead. Please contact us if you have a specific recipe and we can work with you in your Insight-live account to develop a new recipe that both eliminates the GB and improves overall working and firing properties. |
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