Introducing Crack Pot crack filler!

Over the past few years, The Ceramic Shop has taken on the task of developing innovative new products for the pottery world under our in-house brand name ‘Mr. Mark’. Because our company got its start due to this sort of innovation with Mark’s development of the ever-popular Hydro-Bat, we’ve always considered product development to be a part of The Ceramic Shop’s DNA. In 2012, we introduced Mr. Mark’s Wax On and Wax Off; 2013 saw the introduction of our popular Ware Repair. We may have just topped ourselves with our most recent product, though – we’re very excited to tell you all about our brand-new Crack Pots! The following post will give you a little bit of background of the product, as well as detailed instructions on how to use it and what kind of results you can expect.

Crack Pot is a crack filler that you can actually fire and glaze. We came up with the idea after receiving call upon call inquiring if our Ware Repair (which we tout as a greenware or bisque glue) could be used to fill cracks. While Ware Repair is an awesome product, it can’t really be used for that – but we were confident that we could formulate something that could meet the needs of our customers. We got to work testing, and firing, and glazing, and re-firing – our head tech, Rachel, worked VERY hard to get this product just right! In the end, we found that the best way to make a reliable product was to offer several different versions, so Crack Pot is available in different firing ranges, AND different colors!

We currently make Crack Pot in four different firing colors – white, red, brown, and buff – and in two different firing ranges – low- and high-fire. This means if you work with low-fire white clay in your classroom, you may want to try our lowfire white Crack Pot; if you work with a cone 6 red clay, such as Standard 308 Brooklyn Red, you’ll want to use our high-fire red Crack Pot.

Part 1: Application

Crack Pot works on wares that are green OR bisque; however, the product works best on pots that have already been bisque fired -- one of the applications we thought potters might find useful is an S-crack filler. To prepare to fill a crack in one of your pots, we suggest assembling the following materials:

-- Crack Pot crack filler

-- Pot to be repaired

-- Small bowl of water

-- Small sponge

-- Small sculpting tool (we like this one!)

Open your jar of Crack Pot, and using your sculpting tool, scoop some out. You will see that it has a putty-like consistency; simply work it into your pot's cracked area. Once you have filled the crack sufficiently, use your small sponge and bowl of water to smooth the application. We suggest smoothing with a damp, not soaking wet, sponge. This is also a good time to clean off your sculpting tool. 

Part 2: Drying/Firing:

After you complete applying Crack Pot to your soon-to-be-saved pot, let it dry completely before moving on to the next step. Crack Pot is a versatile product; if you apply it to bisqueware, you may opt to simply glaze right over it once it is dry. However, we do recommend re-bisquing your pot, simply because your glazed results will be more consistent if you are able to do that. 

 Above, our buff Crack Pot was added to a bisqued tile (center), re-bisqued, and glazed 

with The Ceramic Shop's Golden Tan and fired to Cone 6.

The reason for this is basic clay science -- by firing Crack Pot before glazing it, you will make the material have the same level of absorbency as the rest of your bisqued clay, and therefore glaze will behave in a more consistent way across both your crack-filled section, and the rest of your piece. However, we understand that not everyone has the time and space to re-bisque their work, so we do want to let you know that yes, glaze can work on unfired Crack Pot. However, please note that your results may not be quite as seamless as the example above:

 

Above, our brown Crack Pot crack filler (center), filling a crack in a bisqued tile, and glazed without an intermediate bisque firing. Non-bisqued Crack Pot does absorb glaze, just not with the same consistency as bisqued Crack Pot.

If you are able to bisque firing your Crack Pot after applying, there is an additional advantage: You can sand your piece's surface before glazing, which can really refine the formerly-broken area. 

Part 3: You're done!

That's right -- using Crack Pot is VERY easy. Just a couple of steps, really! If you have further questions about this product, or anythign else in the Mr. mark line, don't hesitate to get in touch. We're happy to help. Just send us an email at info@theceramicshop.com, or give our shop a call at 215-427-9665. 

NEW Electric Wood Ash Glazes!

As many of you know, we have a few different lines of glazes that we produce here at The Ceramic Shop. Our longest-running (and most extensive) series is our Cone 6 Pro Series, which was designed to mimic the look for reduction-fired glazes in oxidation, or electric kiln, formulas. The artists here at the company love and use the glazes, and they're popular with customers, too. Still, every now and again we encounter the typical potter's material issue -- some chemical source closes, or changes, or some product that we order just starts acting...different. Over time, this can make it necessary for us to alter the glaze formulas in order to make them better.

Well, our head tech Rachel has certainly been busy over the past few months. In addition to all of the other exciting projects that she has in the pipeline, she managed to reformulate two of our favorite glazes -- Electric Wood Ash and Electric Wood Ash Green. We like these glazes so much because they REALLY look like they've been reduction-fired, with cool, variegated surfaces that mimic the wild drips of wood ash glazes. And now, we're actually adding two NEW wood ash-style glazes to our Cone 6 pro Series offerings, too -- the deep Electric Wood Ash Brown, and the wild-textured Electric Wood Ash Blue. Check 'em out!

Electric Wood Ash Brown - NEW!

Electric Wood Ash Blue - NEW!

Each tile above is made of white stoneware -- Standard 240, to be exact. The upper right half of each tile features one dip into a glaze bath, and the lower left corner shows you two dips. These glazes can do alright on claybodies with a bit of a color, but most of our tests emerged looking just a little too dark or muddled. It's a light, iron-free body that really allows the variegated surface to develop and shine, so keep that in mind if you decide to try out these glazes. And how about our reformulated Electric Wood Ash (Classic) and Electric Wood Ash Green? I'd suggest the same for those, as well -- and here, for your viewing pleasure, are some close-up samples:

Electric Wood Ash (Classic) - reformulated!

Electric Wood Ash Green -- reformulated!

So there you have it - some new and exciting surfaces from The Ceramic Shop! If you have used any of our Cone 6 Professional glazes in your studio or classroom, we'd love to see your results! Follow us on FaceBook or email images of your awesome work to gina@theceramicshop.com and we'll be happy to share them.

Same glaze, different clays

Because we're always trying to improve the products that we make here at The Ceramic Shop, we tend to do a lot of testing. Whether we're developing the perfect wax products or finessing our glaze offerings, the more we know about our our items, the more information we can pass on to you.

One question that we get VERY frequently is a very general inquiry: 'Why doesn't the glaze on my piece look like the tile/chip/picture?' This is a question that spans glaze firing temperatures, brands, application methods...name the variable, and it has come up when we field this question.  However, in many cases, the answer is quite direct -- the base upon which you put your glaze (whether you dip, paint, or spray) will have a major effect on how your glaze turns out.

To demonstrate just how intensely your claybody can affect your final  glaze outcome, we've tested our Cone 6 Professional glaze line on four different claybodies that represent a good swath of the claybody color spectrum. We narrowed down our testing on the following claybodies:

1. Standard 365, a cone 6 grolleg porcelain.

2. Standard 240, a white cone 6 stoneware -- as white stonewares do not tend to be as crisp and bright as porcelains, we thought it would be good to show them side-by-side.

3. Standard 259, a buff  cone 4-10 stoneware -- this is a stoneware that can actually get pretty toasty in reduction, but in oxidation it remains a mid-toned tan/brown color -- and a great deal of stonewares will fall into this general color range. 

4. Standard 266, a dark brown cone 4-6 stoneware.  This is definitely on the darker end of the claybody color spectrum -- and that color is delivered by various oxides that exist in the claybody. I mention this as you peruse through our results because you will notice that the examples of glazes on this claybody in particular feature some pretty drastic results -- that is a direct result of all of the 'stuff' (er....oxides and colorants) that are in this clay, and impart their qualities to objects that come into direct chemical contact with them, such as a glaze coat.

  

OK!  So, onward with our test results...

Here's a good starting point -- a side-by-side comparison of all four claybodies dipped in our Classic Clear..  

This is a clear, glossy coating that really allows the underlying claybody to show through. Fairly predictable results -- basically, a layer of clear glass has been melted over the surface of these clays, allowing their natural colors to shine through. 

If you add a bit of colorant materials or opacifiers to a clear glaze, you get a translucent glaze - and here at The Ceramic Shop, we carry plenty of these. Translucent glazes are kind of like the tinted windows of the glaze world - they cast a definite tone upon the clay that they are placed on, but that clay still shines through a bit, as well.  We have had customers who are rather surprised by just how much the underlying claybody can, indeed, affect a strongly-colored, yet translucent, glaze.  Here's an example, with our Cotton Candy:

Here, some visualization can help - say you are tasked with re-painting a room with very dark walls. If you are painting that room a significantly brighter color, you might really need a primer if you want you new shade to display its full brightness. To this end, I often suggest to people who work with darker claybodies to consider using a light-colored or white slip over the areas they might like to glaze in a bright color. And, sure, this sort of analogy makes sense when you think about the nature of translucent glazes. 

However, we also frequently have clients express their surprise at just how significantly claybody color affects opaque glazes. These are glazes that are completely solid and do not allow light to pass through; as such, it makes sense that you might think of them as less influenced by the color of the surface that they cover, right? The thing is, though, many reactions you see in a glaze surface are distinct chemical reactions that rely on the interaction of different materials -- and, for color response, this often means oxides. Red iron oxide, for example, is a very common -- and very powerful! -- material that can be found in many, many different clays and glazes. The dark stoneware that we used for these tests very likely contains this, for instance. 

When a glazed vessel goes through the firing process, it's not simply a matter of the glaze becoming fused to the clay's surface. A very small zone of mixing actually happens, where the interface between the two is a clay-glaze hybrid. This means that any oxides that the claybody might contain can indeed actually become physically enmeshed into the glaze -- and that, in turn, can alter the end-result color, even when the glaze is opaque. Here's an example with our very popular Tidal Pool glaze:

As you can see, this opaque blue-green glaze looks pretty much the same on whiter and lighter clays - but it looks completely different on the dark stoneware. The colorants that form the green/blue tones in the glaze have clearly been overpowered by the coloring oxides in the dark stoneware's claybody, resulting in a brown -- NOT green -- glaze. While we expected a degree of variation, this was one of those tests where the outcome was actually a bit more drastic than we thought it would be, which just goes to show the importance of testing your glazes whenever possible!

For a final example, I want to demonstrate just how much an underlying claybody can affect the look of an opaque, but lighter-colored, glaze. Most studios are outfitted with some sort of an opaque white glaze, and this tends to be a look that I use as my go-to. Here at The Ceramic Shop, we have a White Gloss and a White Matte, and both are unsurprisingly popular. Below, though, check out just how much a darker claybody can affect an opaque white glaze:

The first three examples are fairly predictable, but it's clear that the dark stoneware delivers significant effect to this particular glaze. For the record, these tiles were all fired in the same firing and photographed in the same light. I mention this because the change in the white matte when applied to a darker claybody is, indeed, remarkable. 

If you use or are thinking about using our Cone 6 professional glazes, you'll be happy to know we have been working hard to compile user resources on our website -- and we have many more tile comparison charts, featuring your favorite Ceramic Shop glazes. We will be adding to this until it's done! You can check out our application and firing suggestions here.

If you have used The Ceramic Shop's Cone 6 Professional Glazes and have some tips, tricks, or results you would like to share, we'd love to hear from you! We welcome comments here on the blog and we love to post customer work on our Facebook page.

The Cash Money Blues

I've been making a bunch of demos for our upcoming NCECA demonstration table, and I've been having a blast doing it.  Making pottery for work?  Livin' the dream, right? Previously I wrote about the Catalyst tools by Princeton Artist Brush Co. that I used to create my wheelthrown forms; today, I'm going to talk about glazing.  I just opened my little ConeArt test kiln this morning, and here are my results -- not too shabby!

Mean muggin'.

These forms were made with Standard Stoneware 259, which is a very easygoing claybody for throwing.  Very forgiving with enough grog to make you feel kinda tough, this is a claybody that turns an extremely attractive toasty brown in reduction.  Because I primarily fire oxidation here, though, I needed my glazing to punch up the electric kiln results.  Luckily, here at The Ceramic Shop we make our own Professional Cone 6 Glazes here that aim to do just that, so I had plenty of options.  

The mug pictured in back is glazed in the Ceramic Shop's cone 6 Tomato Luster. This glaze has always been reasonably popular, but for me, it's one of those glazes that I have become fanatical about over the past few months.  It's a workhorse -- delivers beautiful results with incredible consistency across a variety of claybodies, and has this gorgeous, variegated surface complete with tiny green crystals. Here's a picture of Tomato Luster over some mugs I made from the deep dark Standard Stoneware 266, fired, again, to cone 6 oxidation:

Toasty situation.

Here is a close-up detail of those awesome little green crystals:

That's rich.

The other two mugs pictures in the top image were glazed with The Ceramic Shop's deep cobalt-blue cone 6 offering, Cash Money Blue.  It's rich enough to pop up a beautiful deep blue on most claybodies (save for the very darkest, such as Standard 266), but has just enough translucence to allow the underlying body to peek through.  This works great for me, because I love the juxtaposition of glazed surface and raw claybody -- and I toyed with just this in my NCECA demo mugs. With the mug on the top left, for example, I simply dipped it and then let it dry; once I could handle the dried glaze, I took a moist (but wrung-out) sponge and removed the glaze from the bottom and the lower surface.  This just left behind some glaze in the mug's textured cracks, resulting in that shiny glaze/matte clay look that I love so much!

Won't you join me for a drink?

"But Gina," you may ask, "what about all of that glaze run-off you create when you wipe perfectly good glaze off with a sponge?"  Fair enough, good people of the internet -- and there's an easy answer for you.  Because I have the storage space here at work to do this, I keep a series of well-labeled deli pint containers (with lids) filled with water.  Each container corresponds with a glaze that I use frequently, so when I elect to do a wiped finish, as seen above, I can simply dip my little yellow sponge into the water and the remnants of that glaze collect in a contained space.  Once I accumulate enough wiped-off glaze, I simply drain off the clear water once it has settled out and am then able to fully reconstitute that run-off back into a glaze, with no worries about contamination. 

If you are looking for reduction-worthy results from your cone 6 oxidation firings, consider our Professional Cone 6 glazes -- and, as always, we welcome your own tips for application and images of your work using our glazes as well!