Materials

Sodium Silicate

SODSIL

Sodium silicate is an alkaline solution of silica and soda in water, and it is a common deflocculant for casting slip. A very small amount makes a slip pour freely with much less water than the same clay would need without it.

Spodumene

SPOD

Spodumene is a lithium mineral that also contains alumina and silica, so it is used in a recipe as a glass former and not just as a flux. It barely dissolves in water, and it gives off almost no gas.

Strontium Carbonate

STCA

Strontium carbonate is an active flux at middle and high temperatures. It makes the melt more fluid and gives a smoother surface. About seven tenths of its weight is strontium oxide, and the rest leaves as gas.

Silverline Talc

TASI

Talc is a hydrated magnesium silicate, and the softest mineral on the Mohs hardness scale. It is the main flux in many low fire white bodies, and in a glaze it is one of the main ways magnesia is added.

Titanium Dioxide

TIDI

Titanium dioxide dissolves into a glaze melt and crystallizes again as the kiln cools. The amount decides whether it variegates a surface or whitens it.

Tile #6 Kaolin

TIKA

Tile #6 is a kaolin, and unusually for a kaolin it is plastic. It can be thrown and worked wet where a kaolin is normally short. It fires white and supplies alumina and silica to a body or a glaze.

Tin Oxide

TIOX

Tin oxide is the opacifier that turns a glaze white. Part of it dissolves into the melt, so the whiteness depends on the rest of the recipe.

$Uni-Cast Castable Refractory$

Uni-Cast Castable Refractory

UNICAS

Castable Refractory is a dry refractory mix that sets hard with water, so a shape can be poured to fit the kiln instead of being built up from brick. The set material is dense and heavy, and it stores heat instead of insulating.

Veegum T

VEGU

VEEGUM T is a refined, water-washed smectite clay composed of magnesium aluminium silicate. This white-firing mineral additive helps suspend particles and control viscosity in glazes, improves plasticity in ceramic bodies, and acts as a binder in extruded formulations.

Laguna Wax Resist

WAXL

Wax resist is a water based wax emulsion, brushed on wherever glaze is not wanted. As it dries the water leaves and the wax forms a film that glaze cannot wet.

Reed Wax Resist

WAXR

Reed Wax Resist is a thin, quick drying liquid wax that brushes out smoothly and gives a fine line. On bisque the coat is ready to glaze over in minutes.

Whiting (Calcium Carbonate)

WHIT

Whiting is calcium carbonate, and a common way to add calcium to a glaze. Calcium fluxes at high temperatures, so it is most active from about cone 4 upward.

Wollastonite

WOLL

Wollastonite is calcium silicate, with crystals that form fine needles instead of grains. It adds calcium and silica to a recipe together, and almost none of its weight leaves as gas.

Yellow Ochre

YEOC

Yellow Ochre is an iron-bearing colourant for ceramic slips, engobes, glazes and clay bodies. It can produce warm earthy colours, with the fired result depending on the formulation and firing conditions.

Zinc Oxide

ZIOX

Zinc oxide is a white powder that works as a flux from the middle of the firing range upward. It brightens copper greens, turns chrome a dull grey brown, and in quantity it grows crystals.

Zircopax

ZIRC

Zircopax is milled zircon, and a common way to make a glaze white and opaque. The particles stay suspended in the glass instead of dissolving, and they scatter the light.