About a week ago I mixed up some glaze from a pre-mixed powder. The powder was Pam’s Blue by Coyote and it was my first attempt at mixing any kind of glaze outside of the Huntington Clay House. I got to purchase some new tools and I did some research and even talked to a few people on Clayart. In the end it wasn’t too hard.
nice respirator
I talked my wife into helping and she had a lot of fun…. She took a couple pictures so I could share my experience. The first thing you want to remember is: Safety First! I got to wear a new respirator so I didn’t breathe too much of the dust when I was dumping the powder into the water. It’s a good look!
mixing glaze
My wife mixed the water while I slowly dumped the powder . It got pretty thick, even when I used all the water that the directions called for. I was supposed to use 1 gallon and 1 pint but added a lot more by the end of the process. I used my cordless drill and a 1 gallon paint mixer to mix the powder into the water. Even after mixing it with the drill mixer for a while it was still pretty lumpy.
glaze sieve
I put it through an 80 mesh sieve three times. After letting it sit overnight I mixed it up again with the drill mixer and it was ready to be applied to some bisque ware. I even checked the specific gravity or “density” with a hydrometer.
I’ll have a full post on the items that I pulled out of the kiln. The Pam’s Blue that I mixed from powder actually looks different than the pre-mixed pints I’ve used. Check later to see how!
3 Comments
Can’t wait to see it.
May I suggest that you add the dry powders to hot or warm water and let slake before mixing. You will find that this will give you no lumps to deal with. You only might want to sieve the material to complete the mixing process. If Bentonite or CMC is an addition to your mixture, first mix it with another dry ingredient to disperse it before adding to the water.
Hey Bonnie,
Thanks for the tips. I think I’m going to try the “slake method” that you suggested the next time I mix glazes. I’ve heard other people suggest something similar so it must work pretty well.
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[...] month I glaze fired close to 20 pieces after mixing some glaze from dry powder. The Pam’s Blue that I mixed turned out more blue-green instead of the blue-gray that I got [...]