Friday, October 10, 2008

MoonCrater White Glaze

I generally maintain 2-3 white glazes for my work in the studio at any given time. I have a dependable white liner that I use mostly on rims and interiors of domestic ware. I usually like trying out experimental white glazes for future works, and then there's my MoonCrater White.

This is the recipe for the MoonCrater White cone 6 oxidation glaze that I use in my electric kiln. It's a fairly standard white satin matte glaze that I ran across in a February 2003 Ceramic Monthly. The only change I've made was switching out Tin Oxide for Zircopax as a opacifier to give me a softer white.

Gerstle Borate 31.6%

Talc 14%

Kona F-4 Feldspar 19.8%

EPK 5%

Silica 29.6%

Add:
Tin Oxide 5%
Bentonite 2%

By nearly all accounts, this is a bland unpredictable glaze that I should have stopped mixing up 2 years ago, but... well, I like it.

It's faults are what makes this glaze so interesting . When it's overfired on a cone 5 clay body, the glaze develops a rich creamy semi-translucent white satin matte that's inclined to develop patches of wonderfully textured orange peel effects that often transition into shallow open soft edged craters. This is a pleasantly usable texture glaze.


The main reason this glaze is still made is that it's mixed proportionally with a Nutmeg glaze to create an all purpose wonderfully warm earthtoned glaze that's a customer favorite. In house, I refer to this mix as a NutWhite glaze.

The personal reason I still mix this glaze up is because I love what happens when I use it over paper stencil cobalt slipped designs on a red stoneware clay body.
While I'm still never really sure how this glaze will come out of kiln, I love and live for the anticipation of creating works for this glaze. It's a glaze that provides me some of the highs and lows that make studio life so rewarding.

5 comments:

TotusMel said...

I'm certain that my brother could make sense of this for me,as he tried to explain glazes to me not so long ago. Whatever the mix, the result is stunning.

Sue said...

I love your work! thanx for stopping by my blog, happy to hear your daughter likes my doll. Cheers!

Kilobelle said...

Is this a food safe glaze ?

FetishGhost said...

Yep!
But I still keep it strictly on the exterior because of the unpredictable pitting.
A more suitable white liner would be wiser for the interior of anything that comes in contact with food.

Anonymous said...

I tried your Mooncrater White, and the tests were quite promising. I'm going to try to push it toward a lite gray, but the finish was spot-on. Thanks for publishing it, and for the useful notes about using it!