URL: Replacing the Gerstley Borate in recipes containing 50% or more of it

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Many recipes are built on bases employing exceptionally high percentages of Gerstley Borate. At medium temperatures these melt fluid transparents host additions of colorants, variegators and opacifiers. At low fire they tend to be used as transparents over underglaze decoration. Frits source the boron also, even in recipes having as high as 50% GB.

Related Information

Can you actually throw a Gerstley Borate glaze? Yes!

A thrown vase made of a Gerstley Borate glaze

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G2931 Worthington Clear is a popular low to medium-fire transparent glaze recipe. It contains 55% Gerstley Borate (GB) plus 30% kaolin (GB melts at a very low temperature). GB is also very plastic, like a clay. I have thrown a pot from this glaze recipe! This explains why high Gerstley Borate glazes often dry so slowly and shrink and crack during drying. When recipes also contain a plastic clay like this one the shrinkage is even worse. GB is also slightly soluble, over time it gels glaze slurries even in smaller percentages. Countless potters struggle with Gerstley Borate recipes.

Click here for case-studies of Insight-Live fixing problems

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You will see examples of replacing unavailable materials (especially frits), fixing various issues (e.g. running, crazing, settling), making them melt more, adjusting matteness, etc. Insight-Live has an extensive help system (the round blue icon on the left) that also deals with fixing real-world problems and understanding glazes and clay bodies.

Gerstley Borate 50:30:20 glaze. How could this have worked?

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This recipe, G2826A, a base transparent recipe having 50% Gerstley Borate plus 20% kaolin, is "jelly city". Even with 2.5g of Darvan deflocculant in this jar it is still thick enough to require pushing this tile down into it! Even then, it needs 5 seconds to build up enough thickness. And then does not even cover properly. People have suffered with this popular fluid-melt recipe for 50 years or more just to get the surface variegation it produces. They add all manner of colorants and opacifiers to it. And endure its incessant running onto kiln shelves, bubbling and clouding. It is time to just stop this "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" of ceramic materials! And use different base transparents that employ frits to source the boron (B₂O₃). Same chemistry, just a better recipe: G2826A1. Then just add rutile or titanium to restore the variegation. Are you a masochist and still want to be punished? Then at least use the G2826A2 recipe with Gillespie Borate instead.

Links

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.
Recipes	G2931L - Low Expansion Low-Fire Clear A cone 03-02 low expansion clear ceramic glaze developed from Worthington Clear.
Glossary	Glaze Gelling Glaze slurries can gel if they contain soluble materials that flocculate the suspension. Gelling is a real problem since it requires water additions that increase shrinkage.
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?
Typecodes	Gerstley Borate Glaze Calculation examples 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).

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