Testing Ceramic Glazes

For more ways to test your glazes check out the may june 2019 issue of pottery making.

Testing ceramic glazes. Test glazing can be a laborious but necessary process. Characterization in ceramics this normally refers to the process of doing physical or chemical testing on a raw material to accurately describe it in terms of similar ones. The importance of test glazes. It allows you to test combinations of glazes easily and inexpensively and serves as a permanent reminder of what a glaze looked like on a certain clay.

This clip is excerpted from understanding glazes with john britt which is available in the ceramic arts network shop. Ceramic glazes melt and flow according to their chemistry and mineralogy. Observing and measuring the nature and amount of flow is important in understanding them. Jennifer poellot harnetty editor.

The best way to learn about ceramic glazes and glaze materials is to test them. Otherwise if you re like me you forget very quickly. By studying what happens when varying amounts of various ingredients are combined in a glaze and then fired to various temperatures you start to understand how materials affect each other and therefore how to troubleshoot when your results are not what you wanted. In today s post an excerpt from the may june 2019 issue of pottery making illustrated gabriel kline shares two tests that can help you determine if you re using food safe ceramic glazes in your practice.

Once your ceramics have gone through their glaze firing they ll be vitrified and the process will be irreversible.