Start Mixing Your Own Ceramic Glazes – A Shopping List
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Are you ready to start mixing your own glazes?
Do you want to increase your understanding of how glazes work? Have a little more control over your results? Maybe you’ve been using commercial (pre-mixed) glazes for a while now and they aren’t exactly doing what you want them to.
Perhaps you’ve reached the point in your ceramics journey that you want to start understanding the materials you’re working with and what is actually happening when you put your pottery into the kiln.
Or, it could be that the cost of commercial glaze is adding up and you would like to explore a much cheaper option.
What’s the solution to these problems? Make your own glazes.
I’m here to tell you the basic benefits of mixing your own glazes and a list of materials to get you started.
The benefits:
Control and understanding
When you mix your own glazes, you get to know your materials so that you can adjust your recipes in order to achieve the results you are after.
Is your glaze too glossy? Not the right shade of blue? Knowing your materials and how they interact with each other gives you the freedom to make adjustments and fine tune your glazes to be exactly how you want them.
Cost
At my local pottery supplier, a pint of pre-mixed glaze averages $15-$30. A pint is the common size that glazes come in around here. The only gallon-size of commercial glaze that they carry is a clear glaze for $100, and I’d still have to mix my own colourants in. For all the metric folks like me, a gallon is the equivalent of 3.8L.
You can mix a gallon of glaze from scratch for under $5. Seriously!
The shopping list:
I’ve put together a list of the most common glaze materials and equipment necessary to start mixing your own glazes. With this list you will have all the ingredients you need to make a very large variety of glaze recipes. Then, as you figure out glazes you specifically want to make, you can add to your inventory.
You don’t need all of these ingredients to make one glaze, you could get by with even less, but this list will give you the widest variety of possible glazes with the smallest number of materials. I work at cone 6 and my material choices are based on common cone 6 recipes.
I tried to keep costs down and I chose the smallest quantity I’d buy if I was just getting started. The quantities are according to what was available at my supplier. Your supplier might sell different quantities. For example, 5kg of Dolomite is the smallest bag I could buy, which is a lot of dolomite if you’re just getting started.
Base ingredients
- Silica – 5 kg – $10
- EPK – 5 kg – $11
- Frit 3124 – 2.5 kg – $18
- Gerstley Borate – 2.5 kg – $14
- Nepheline Syenite – 5 kg – $10
- Custer Feldspar – 5 kg – $10
- Whiting – 5 kg – $7
- Talc – 2.5 kg – $5
- Dolomite – 5 kg – $12
- Zinc Oxide – 500g – $6
Additives
- Bentonite – 2.5 kg – $6
Colourants
- Copper Carbonate – 125g – $7
- Red Iron Oxide – 500g – $9
Total: $125
For $125 you’re off to a great start
With these materials, you can make buckets and buckets of glazes of different colours and textures. Feel free to add any other ingredients you find in your favourite recipes, like colourants. (Cobalt didn’t make the cut due to cost but is another very common colourant. Rutile is also found in lots of recipes.)
Prices will vary depending on your location. I’m located in Canada so costs are in Canadian dollars and based on my local supplier’s prices. Your prices may be different. Prices updated Jan 2020.
Update March 2021: If you buy this list of ingredients and want to know which glazes you can make with them, I wrote a blog post just for you!
Other useful items:
Personal Protection Equipment (for more details, check out my article on safety in the glaze lab)
- Half face respirator –the most important piece of safety equipment you need
- Rubber gloves
- Safety glasses
- Apron or lab coat
Tools and Equipment
- 80 mesh glaze sieve –available at local pottery store
- Nylon bristle dish brush with handle for pushing your glaze through the sieve
- 2-5 gallon buckets with lids for storing your mixed, wet glazes
- Sealable plastic containers to store your dry materials in
- Scale for weighing dry materials
Get started
Once you’ve acquired your materials, you’re ready to dive in to the wonderful world of glaze mixing.
Feel free to ask questions in the comments below and let me know how glaze mixing is going for you. I can’t wait to hear about it.
Ceramic Story-Time with Sue
Watch the Video
In this video, I read the blog post live in my Facebook group and answer questions.
Learn to Mix Glazes from Scratch
If you’ve never mixed a glaze from scratch before and want to learn, I teach an online workshop called Glaze Mixing Essentials where I show you all the steps to mix a glaze and then test a base glaze with multiple colourants. Click the link for all the details.
Download this blog post as a pdf
Want to keep this blog post in your files? You can download it as a full colour pdf to print or keep on your computer for easy reference.
Click here to get it!
Join my free community
If you love learning about and discussing glazes, I'd like to invite you to my free social learning Facebook group called Understanding Glazes with Sue. The group is full of videos and discussions about firing, mixing glazes and fixing various glaze issues. Please join!
Thank you for this! I’m just getting started with making my own glazes and was a little overwhelmed at what ingredients to buy first.
I’m so glad you found it helpful. Let me know if you have questions 🙂
Are the glazes with this recipe food grade/safe? Thank you
This list isn’t a recipe, it’s a list of materials that can be used to make many different recipes. Food safety is related to the which recipe you choose.
Hey Sue! I love your site, and I’ve just taken Matt’s Glaze of our Lives online class and I am an addicted glaze nerd in training! I enjoyed your Cone 6 presentation too. I’m about to start mixing my own glazes and have all the materials. So excited!
Wonderful! If you’re on Facebook, I have a group called Understanding Glazes with Sue. Please join and let me know how the glaze mixing goes.
Sue
How do you determine if ingredients are safe for pieces that you want to use for food or drink? Food-safe?
Hi Carol,
Most materials can be used safely, it depends on the glaze composition. I would avoid lead and cadmium as they are regulated as toxic. The rest of the materials have allowable limits and whether a glaze will leach enough those materials to be considered toxic depends on too many factors and I’m not an expert in this subject.
Here are a couple videos you can watch that address toxicity of glazes:
https://youtu.be/9OcZnGHKy_M
https://youtu.be/DptgFBkynHA (last 20 mins)
Thank you!
Hi Sue. When are you going to post the future article of what to do with the materials? Can’t wait to put these on practice! 😀
what are salts in a glaze?
Hi Carole,
Generally glazes don’t contain salts, unless you’re referring to flocculating with Epsom salts? I don’t think I mentioned salts in this article so I’m not sure where the question is coming from. Maybe you could elaborate.
Sue
Just out of curiosity, how many different colors can you make with those two colorants only? Just two? I’m taking “Glaze of Our Lives” now, but I was just googling around and found this site.
Hi Sara,
It depends on the base recipe, which colours you’ll get from iron and copper. Iron can make yellows, oranges, reds, beige, browns etc. Copper can make blues, greens, and turquoise of all different shades. Another common colourant is Cobalt that makes blues and purples but it’s quite expensive and I wanted to keep this list basic and affordable. You can also mix colourants for more colours and variations. Hooe that helps.
Sue
Hello, Are these Ingredients suitable for any cone?
Glaze cone temperature has to do with the recipe, not the ingredients themselves. These ingredients can make glazes for all cone temperatures.
Nice list! But, wow, frits and GB is so cheap in Canada. Here in Europe I pay 5 (five) times that much.
1kg of GB is 18€ (28$) here.
Yes, our costs would be different considering Gerstley Borate comes from California so has much less distance to travel to Canada than to Europe.
I really appreciate the work that you are doing here and feel inspired by your blog. I hope to tune in 5pm in London. I run classes here in North London and with all the Covid and lockdowns I have a bit more time to look around and see what other people are up to.
Dear Sue, What is your reasoning for the nepheline syenite? why not just stick with custer?
same with talc and magcarb?
Anyone in Europe would of course susbstitute with cheaper local materials.
Ulexite, portabor instead of gerstley borate.
Hi Lauge, I addressed your comment in the video posted above the comments section
Hi!
On your equipment list there is no hydrometer listed. Do you measure the specific gravity of your glazes?
Yes, I do measure the specific gravity of my glazes, but I don’t use a hydrometer. If you search my site for hydrometer, you’ll find a post explaining why I don’t find the hydrometer to be useful.
This is great – I used your list and have all of these materials… now what? lol. Is there a basic recipe you recommend to begin with?
Hi Amanda,
I will work on a list of recipes that go with these materials, as a few people have asked this same question. I didn’t have a specific recipe in mind when I made this list, I just went with the most common materials that show up in all the recipes I make.
Very generous of you! Thanks
Hi
I live in Montréal
I am wondering where is the best place to buy raw materials
On ceramic website or at shops selling chemistry products?
Thanks for your help
Anywhere you can get them easily is best! I order mine locally.
Sue
What ingredients would you suggest if I want to make cone 10 glazes instead of cone 6 glazes? I want to start making cone 10 glazes, however, I don’t want to have to buy a numerous amount of materials. Would you add or substitute any materials from this list?
Just saw this and thought I would respond. I worked only in cone 10 for a lifetime of years. This is a good list.
Thanks for your input!
Sue
Hello, the local manufacturer sells a quality see-through glaze and 50 kilos are quite affordable. Do you think it is possible to obtain a red or blue glaze by mixing certain proportions of colorants such as cobalt or red copper oxide?
Yes, definitely! You want to measure the colourants as percentages of the dry weight of your base glaze. That’s a great plan to buy a prepared glaze in dry form and add colourants to it.