Master the art and science of ceramics
Create beautifully consistent glazes
Inconsistent Glaze Results?
Did you know that water content has a big impact on your glaze results? Consistent water content = consistent application thickness = consistent results!
Specific Gravity is just a technical term for measuring how much water is in your glazes. Take control of your glazes with my free step-by-step guide to measuring specific gravity for repeatable results.
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Understand Your Glazes and Your Pottery Studio
Articles written by Sue McLeod, a studio technician and glaze explorer
Getting Clarity with Clear Glazes
There’s nothing worse than a cloudy clear glaze muddying up your beautiful slip design, screen printed images or coloured clay. How can we make sure our clear glaze is always clear and prevent it from going cloudy? In this...
What to Keep Track of in Your Glaze Journal
Download your free Glaze Journal Checklist Print out this 5-page checklist and keep it in your studio for easy reference. Click here to get it!How Magic Becomes Science Have you ever unloaded a BEAUTIFUL piece from the kiln and...
Different Styles of Test Tiles You Can Make for Glaze Testing
What Are Test Tiles? The word “test tile” can refer to any shape of clay that’s used to test glazes, slips, underglazes, engobes etc. Test tiles can be any shape you wish and can be made in a variety of ways. In this...
15 Tips to Get Started with Glaze Testing
My Introduction To Glaze Testing I find ceramic glazes to be absolutely fascinating. I had no idea when I started working with clay that glazes would become the main focus of my life. My first year of pottery school was mainly...
How to Calibrate Your Kiln Sitter for Accurate Firings
How the Kiln Sitter Works If you’re anything like me, then your first kiln wasn’t or isn’t going to be the digital programmable kind. Many of us start out with a manual kiln that we got second hand and then one day, we may have...
A Low Tech System for Recycling Clay Scraps
As clay artists, we’re so lucky that we can reduce the amount of waste we produce by reclaiming or recycling our unfired clay. (I use the words “reclaim” and “recycle” interchangeably.) When we make something that cracks, warps...
How to Make a Good Kiln Wash to Protect Your Kiln Shelves
Different Kinds of Kiln Shelves Before I talk about kiln wash, I want to talk about kiln shelves. The kiln shelves that I’ll be referring to in this article are high alumina kiln shelves. Alumina is highly refractory, meaning it...
Do You Put Witness Cones in Every Firing?
I receive a lot of glaze questions and the first question I generally ask in return is "What did the cones look like?" This is because knowing whether the kiln was over- or under-fired is important for diagnosing many glaze...
How to Add Bentonite to a Wet Glaze
Photos, instructions and a video down below!What is bentonite? Bentonite is a very fine particle clay that’s often used as a suspending agent in glazes. Glazes need clay in them to keep all the other materials suspended...
How Well Are You Mixing Your Glazes?
Glaze results on the thin side? As a studio technician at a busy pottery studio, it’s my job to mix and maintain 20 different studio glazes. I’m also the one studio users often go to for help when their glazes don’t work out as...
Why I Don’t Use a Hydrometer to Measure Specific Gravity
Adding Water to Glazes I didn’t always know about measuring specific gravity. Of the 10 years that I’ve been mixing glazes, I’ve only been measuring specific gravity for 3 of them. It wasn’t a technique I learned in school. But…...
Why I Use a Graduated Cylinder for Measuring Specific Gravity
...And what to use if you don't have oneSlender is More Accurate I use a graduated cylinder for measuring specific gravity. A slender container is going to have smaller increments than a wide container, giving higher accuracy....
"Understanding Cone 6"
NCECA presentation - Pittsburgh 2018
My NCECA presentation "Understanding Cone 6" is all about using glaze chemistry, the Unity Molecular Formula and the Stull chart to understand how different surfaces are created at cone 6. Which glaze formulas are likely to be matte or glossy? Which ones are likely to be crazed or be under-fired? How does flux ratio impact fired results?
"Understanding Cone 6" presentation slides and script are available as a free download!