Sunday, January 18, 2009

Test Tiles

Saturday was Raku glaze chemistry day at Claymakers. I like this class. It's very organized and going smoothly, which I like. Last week three of us mixed up the test glazes while the others made 8X8 test tiles. Yesterday we made our test tiles, using auto detail tape to create boxes for each of the glazes. We had a paper template to write in the name of the glaze and any other info we wanted to include. I like this way of making test tiles. And they have holes at the top for hanging. The glazes include a line blend from a base glaze, one with copper carb and one with cobalt carb. We also mixed some mason stains into the base glaze and used some amaco underglazes. We will raku fire these tiles next Saturday. We have three tiles and will fire at three different temps, all lower than the usual temps for Raku. Should be interesting, I'l post results next week.

This is the upstairs studio at Claymakers. No wheels up here, just a slab roller and work tables. Behind the shelves are studio spaces for renters. It's a nice space.

2 comments:

Meagan Chaney Gumpert said...

I like this way of testing glazes! Thanks for sharing. I might have to try that next time instead of having a billion separate tile everywhere.

Tracey Broome said...

Megan: I took a ^10 glaze class and we had so many tiles everywhere I lost track with what was going on. This was so much better and really easy to do. Plus, I think when they are fired they are going to look kinda cool with the black raku border. I guess the only drawback is that you don't really see how the glazes run or break with a flat tile. But with Raku that's not going to matter too much.