Materials

Lithium Carbonate

LICA

Lithium carbonate is a powerful flux. About two fifths of its weight is lithium oxide, and a small addition does visible work in a glaze. The rest leaves as carbon dioxide during the firing.

M-23 is a ball clay, a sedimentary clay with particles fine enough to make a body plastic and strong while it is still raw. Its iron and titania are low for a ball clay, low enough to use as the plasticiser in a white body.

Magnesium Carbonate Light

MACAL

Magnesium carbonate is the way to add magnesia to a glaze without adding silica or calcium at the same time. More than half its weight leaves as gas during the firing.

Manganese Dioxide

MADI

Manganese dioxide colours a glaze anywhere from brown to plum and purple, and at heavy loadings the surface turns metallic. It releases oxygen twice on the way up, and the second release happens while a glaze is sealing.

Manganese Granular

MAGR

Granular Manganese is a crushed and screened manganese ore, kept coarse on purpose. The grains are too large to dissolve into a clay body or a glaze, so each one fires as a dark speck.

Minspar Feldspar

MIFE

Minspar Feldspar is mainly a soda feldspar, with sodium as its leading flux and a decent amount of potash as well. About a tenth of the bag is free quartz.

Nepheline Syenite

NESY

Nepheline syenite is a finely ground alkali rock that melts at a lower temperature than feldspar. It is the raw flux most cone 6 glazes are built on.

Nickel Carbonate

NICA

Nickel Carbonate is a pale green powder, and none of that green survives the firing. It fires grey, brown, purple or yellow depending on the other materials in the glaze, more than on the amount added.

Nickel Oxide

NIOX

Black nickel oxide is a colouring oxide, most often used in small amounts to modify other colours. The black and green forms are similar compounds, but the black is calcined at a lower temperature, so it is more porous, finer, and has a much greater surface area which aids in its higher chemical reactivity compared to the green form.

OM#4 Ball Clay

OM4

OM#4 is a ball clay, a fine and very plastic clay that is added to a body for workability and dry strength, and to a glaze to keep the slurry together. It fires a cream buff.

Petalite

PETA

Petalite is a lithium aluminium silicate, and it supplies lithia to a body or a glaze in an insoluble form. It is used in flameware and ovenware bodies, where it lowers thermal expansion far enough for a pot to take direct heat.

Plainsman Fireclay

PFC

Plainsman Fireclay is a refractory clay blend with moderate plasticity and a slightly textured feel. It is added to clay bodies for structure and heat resistance, and used in refractory mixes for pizza ovens and fire pits.

Pioneer Kaolin

PIKA

Pioneer Kaolin is a medium-plasticity, white-firing kaolin used in ceramic bodies and glazes. It contributes plasticity, dry strength, alumina, and silica while maintaining a relatively light fired colour.

Hydrostone Plaster

PLHYS

Hydrostone is a gypsum cement that sets to a dense, close grained mass with a hard, fine surface. It reproduces very fine detail and stands up to being handled and worked against.

Ultracal 30 Plaster

PLUL

Ultracal 30 is a gypsum cement made for patternmaking, where the measurements of a model are what matter. It keeps its dimensions closely and stays workable for a good while after mixing.

Potassium Carbonate

POCA

Potassium carbonate, long known as pearl ash, is a soluble alkali that supplies potash to a melt with no alumina or silica attached. It is used in synthetic ash glazes, and in bodies made to glaze themselves as they dry.

Pyrophyllite

PYRO

Pyrophyllite is an aluminium silicate mineral, mined and ground as a rock. In a body it lowers thermal expansion and reduces shrinkage.

Redart

REDA

RedArt Clay is a highly plastic, red-firing sedimentary clay used primarily in earthenware bodies, terra cotta, sculpture, tiles, and engobes. It provides strong plasticity and develops a rich red colour over its low-fire range.

Laguna Water-Based Liquid Latex

RUBL

Laguna Water-Based Liquid Latex is a flexible, peelable latex resist used in ceramic decoration and mold-making applications. It can be brushed or applied directly to pottery to temporarily prevent glaze, slip, or other materials from adhering, then peeled away after drying.