So 8 months into my new pottery life, and suddenly it’s all going wrong.
I got some specialty glazes and they don’t behave as nicely at the Mayco Stroke and Coat
So it’s time to get organised. I have fired a bunch of test tiles in the 2 clays I have, and am about to start my glaze library…
So first batch:
- Mayco Foundations red on the front, foundations black on the back
- S&C Blue Yonder front, Bellisssimo Limelicious on the back
- Mayco Copper Metalic on the front, Mayco transparent crackle on the back. Not going to use the raku pot for this fire, I want to see what it does without.
Fired in an 800w microwave in a large kiln, 32 minutes, same as works reliably for Stroke and Coat.
At least the copper is consistent. This is what I saw in the other test fires after the raku combustion stage. So very different on different clays.
With the crackle, I dropped them into water when hot, but I’ll give it a couple of days for the cracks to develop before adding acrylic ink to highlight them.
Glad that the Foundations and Bellisssimo like to be fired the same as Stroke & Coat.
More copper.
Ok, more copper tests.
On white: 3 coats copper front, 2 on the back
On terracotta: 3 coats copper front, on back, 2 coats S&C yellow, 2 coats copper
- ‘4’ tiles: 12 mins, no reduction.
- ‘5’ tiles: 22 mins, reduced in tin with brown paper.
Tiles 4 – front 
Tiles 4 – back 
Tiles 5 – back 
Tiles 5 – front
Aaaarhhgggg. Still not working! The 22 and 32mins are quite similar. The ones that I reduced have a sort of metallic sheen, but no sign of copper!!!
Going to throw a strop and stop for now.
Days pass. Try again.
Ok, 2 more tilesets.
Fronts: 1layer copper on the left, 2 on the right. 6s were 16 mins, 7s were 20.
The tiles on white shoneware both bubbled. Didn’t see this pattern before.
Backs: 2 coat yellow, 1&2 coats copper.
So new test… previously fired pots…
Ok .. some success. Still some bubbling, don’t know if this means too hot or not hot enough!!
