In This Issue

* While the Smoke Clears

* How'd they do that?

* Water Logged Glaze?

* Smoking the Neighbors

* Raku in the News – William K. Turner

* Raku Links

* Workshops - Arizona

* Pottery Business Available - Utah

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* Water Logged Glaze?

A reader asked:

"In the current issue when describing fixes for crawling

you say: 'Using glazes that have been mixed with water for

a long period of time can cause another fit problem,

especially with glazes that are high in Gerstley Borate.

You might try mixing a fresh batch of the problem glaze and

see if you get the same result.' Why should mixing with

water for a long period of time cause problems? I'm

assuming here that you, of course, mix thoroughly before

using. And why, in particular, Gerstley Borate? Does it

loosely bond with the water, or lose internal water to free

water?"

That's a good question.

In my experience, I usually see one of two things with a

glaze that has been mixed with water for a long period of

time (maybe as short as a few hours). It either settles to

the bottom and turns into cement that is very difficult to

get mixed back up, or it turns into a thick sludge that you

have to add more water, to make it useable again. (Gerstley

Borate glazes generally fall into the later category)

The "cement" glaze generally changes on you because it is

so difficult to get it properly mixed again, the formula

will change slightly. It may not be much, but can impact

the result, plus it is just more work.

With the "sludge" glaze, adding more water is what causes

the crawling problem. The added water increases the

shrinkage of the glaze and can affect the bonding

properties of the glaze to the clay body, which is almost

the definition of the crawling defect.

You can read a bit more about this at:

http://www.ceramicsmonthly.com/mustreads/borate.asp

In general my pottery production is very sporadic, so I

only mix up the amount of glaze I will use at one time and

I get more consistent results than using glazes that have

been mixed for a longer period of time.

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After reading Sue's book I discovered dozens of tips,

techniques, and methods of creating Raku beads and jewelry

that I never would have thought of. The hundreds of color

photos are not only instructional but inspiring as well.

There is a new idea to try on almost every page. This book

is a gold mine!" http://www.rakubeadjewelry.com

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