Raw Meterials for the homemade glace
The first meterials for the first glazes
About making your own glazes
Interest in homemade glazes is increasing, but it can seem difficult to get started. This is partly because some people think it is difficult to understand and partly because they believe it requires a lot of investment.
On this page and the following ones, I will provide basic knowledge to get started, along with suggestions for a limited number of materials and three simple recipes.
There are several advantages to starting with few ingredients.
– it is cheaper
– it takes up less space
– it makes it easier to learn what you are doing
Courses
I am happy to offer courses in glaze making. I am willing to come to your workshop to conduct them. You can purchase the materials yourselves or I can bring them along.
It is important to start with a few raw materials, if you will understand what you are doing.
(click on pics)
About ingredients for homemade glazes
You can manage with relatively few ingredients. We can distinguish between ingredients for the raw glaze and ingredients used to color the glaze.
However, the two kind of ingredients influence each other. For example, copper oxide usually colors a glaze green but can also produce brown. And titanium, which is normally used to create white, can sometimes result in blue or yellow. All depending on the ingredients in the raw glaze.
Here I first will go through the basic raw materials and then the basic colorants. Depending on where you live you can get different varieties of this materials.
The first raw materials for stoneware glazes
You can get by with very few ingredients to start with. For the basic glazes, I would recommend the following very inexpensive ingredients:
Feldspar – Kaolin – whiting- quartz – Bor-fritt – (Nephelin syenit) – (Ball Clay)
Feldspar is the cornerstone of most homemade stoneware glazes, as it contains all the necessary elements for a glaze.
There are several varieties. To begin with there is not much difference whether it is a feldspar with Sodium or Potassium, or one that contains both.
Kaolin is also a material that contains several of the components found in a glaze.
Whiting/Chalk helps stoneware glazes to melt better. This is called a flux.
Quartz is called the glass in the glaze. It is found as part of both feldspar and kaolin, but often more is added.
Boron Frit . There are many types of frits. They often contain components that cannot be easily added with the other raw materials, usually acting as a flux to lower the melting point of the glaze.
Boron frit lowers the melting point and stabilizes the glaze at the same time. There are many varieties with slightly different compositions.
To begin with, I recommend Boron Frit No. 169, if available. It is also commonly used in many international recipes.
Learn more: Digitalfire. Glazy
There are also alkaline frits. They also lower the melting point by adding potassium and sodium to the glaze. They do not contain boron, and therefore do not stabilize the glaze in the same way. Then there are frits that are a mixture of the two.
If you ever need an alkaline frit, A2120 is good and is widely used in recipes online.
Ball Clay resembles kaolin in composition.
I like to replace some of the kaolin with ball clay, for example in one of the recipes here on the site. It creates a glaze that is easier to work with and can be brushed on. Read more about ball clay compared to kaolin here: Basic Properties of Ceramic Glazes.
There is a lot of othe available ingrediens. Some add more flux that makes the glaze melt easier. (Click)
Nephelin syenit. A kind of feldspar. This ad more flux than the regular feldspars flux. Very common i reciepes
Dolomite is a variant of whiting
But it gives less vibrant colors and a more matte glaze. You can try replacing whiting 1:1 with dolomite to change the color. However, make a test first.
Calcium borate. Also adds flux to the glaze. It is difficult to obtain, and most people use boron frits instead.
Zinc oxide: Found in many glazes. However, it is quite expensive.
The coloring oxides
You can buy various ready-made colorants to add to the glaze. They are called universal colors or stains. However, they are quite expensive.
Actually, the colors are just oxides of different metals, such as iron oxide (rust) and copper oxide (verdigris). Some of these can be obtained quite cheaply.
But for certain colors like pure yellow and red, you need to buy the ready-made universal colors.
Your first oxides
The first ones to try, in my opinion, are the following five. With these five, you have almost the entire color wheel.
You can start with Iron, Cobalt, and Titanium. These are the ones I use the most. This way, you can also better manage your experiments than if you have too many options.
Titanium
Iron
Manganese
Cobalt
Copper
Iron: Iron oxide is basically just rust. Cheap and gives warm brownish colors ranging from yellow-brown to red-brown.
Titanium: The most common white pigment in paint. Also colors white in glazes. But can give other colors in certain glazes. It also affects the other coloring oxides. For example, you cannot necessarily expect a little white titanium in a blue glaze to make it light blue.
Cobalt: Blue. Expensive, but used in small amounts. And hard to do without.
Manganese: As cheap as iron, and also gives brownish colors. But completely different cool brown tones.
Copper: Gives green. Some love the color, but I don’t like it. Can also give brown colors.
There are a lot of other oxides. But start with the above. Click to see more
Zircon: White. The pigment normally used for glazes on sinks, etc., as it also makes the glaze harder.
Tin: White, very expensive.
Chromium: Green. Can be used for green glazes instead of copper. But is also famous for being able to produce pink glazes when combined with tin.
Three simple recipes for glazes for stoneware
These three glazes show a bit of what can be changed in glaze recipes.
Blue-green with dots
| Feldspa | 40 % |
| Whiting | 40 % |
| Kaolin | 20 % |
| . | |
| . | |
| Kobber-oxyd | 2 % |
A good example of a simple glaze with only three ingredients.
Several of my glazes consist of just these three ingredients.
Copper makes it green. But also try with other oxides. For example
0.5% Cobalt oxide, or
2% Iron oxide
Midnight blue
| Feldspar | 44 % |
| Quartz | 22 % |
| Whting | 17 % |
| Kaolin | 9 % |
| Ball Clay | 8 % |
| Cobalt oxide | 0,5 % |
Compared to the blue-green glaze, two changes have been made to the base glaze
Half of the kaolin has been replaced with ball clay. This makes it easier to brush on and makes the glaze more durable.
Quartz has been added. This makes the finished glaze more stable and hard.
It is not necessary to use both kaolin and ball clay to try the recipe; you can replace one with the other. It will not result in exactly the same glaze, but it will be very similar.
However, it will also apply differently.
It is blue because of cobalt. But feel free to try other oxides.
Black redart
| Red low-fire clay | 55 % |
| Feldspar | 30 % |
| Whiting | 15 % |
| . | |
| . | |
| Cobalt oxide | 1 % |
Here is a glaze based on red clay.
Red clay can be understood as a mixture of pipe clay and feldspar, but with a lot of iron in it.
Iron and cobalt, in the right amounts, produce a black glaze.
The glaze can also be made without red clay, but with ball clay. In that case, iron must be added. And possibly other substances to achieve the correct properties of the glaze.
Read more about homemade glazes
About what is actually in the individual raw materials: 4 substance groups in the glaze (DK)
About which properties of the glaze can be influenced, from brushing to mattness: Basic properties of ceramic glazes. (DK)
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