Glaze settling in bucket

1/2 a cup??? That a bunch. Epson's salts acts to flocculate a glaze

- i.e., the clay particles join together and help to keep the glaze from settling. Your glaze sounds like it has been over flocculated. You can try adding more water, but it will likely result in a thinner coating of glaze when you dip pieces. Another option is to use a small amount of a deflocculant like soda ash.

A better way to use Epsom's salt is to dissolve as much as you can in a quart of water and then add tablespoons full of this solution to your glaze until you get the result you want.

deg

"the best way to re-claim your glaze is to fit one of those gizmos onto an electric drill and mix away until the glaze gets back to its natural consistency.you can do this with a long handled wooden spoon but it takes a lot longer and is hard on the wrists.if you do not have a drill a tip is to pour of most of the liquid, then work the "solids" well with a wooden spoon(or an old hand held food mixer) then gradually add a bit of the liquid and mix well, repeat until the glaze is as you want it.

instead of wooden spoons we use toilet cleaning brushes to stir our glazes. very effective

Fiona

You can get a recipe and guide for use for epsom salts at my website, on the tips page. To remove excess epsoms, you can add a lot of water to the bucket, mix it up, and let it settle out for a day or so, and remove a good deal of the water off the top by pouring it or by the cupful. You just got too much of a good thing, but since it dissolves in water it can be removed from the mix by thinning. Brad Sondahl

-- For original art, music, pottery, and literature, visit my homepage

Pottery sales page reply to me directly, don't forget to take out the "garbage" from myaddress.

i pour off the water, cut up the solids with an old, solid dinner knife and then replace the water. Works very well, takes a bit of time, but i think a wooden spoon would take a lot longer.

Monika

-- Monika Schleidt snipped-for-privacy@schleidt.org

The most important tool in my workshop (apart from my wheel of course) is a blender; I use it for making small and medium batches of slip or glaze, and re-mixing two glazes I have which have almost no clay in them and consequently settle like concrete, I just carve it up and bash it in the blender. Incidentally I never sieve glazes I make in it; I work in Stoneware almost all the time & I reckon at that temperature it's all going to melt :-)

Steve Bath UK

In article , paula writes

Be aware that a blender puts in no air to whatever is being mixed, while a hand mixer or even the larger types are meant to incorporate air into whatever mixture is being cut up and metal masticated. -- thats why egg whites form peaks using a mixer but not with a blender (among a few other reasons). Kathy

Actually Kathy that's one of the reasons it is so good for glaze/slip making; glazes that effervesce after mixing (and there are some materials that cause that) are a pain because of all the tiny pinholes they leave in the glazed surface

In article , Kathryn & Stuart Fields writes

Yes, I understand. That's why the note. Kathy