Glossary

Glaze Preparation

While our liquid glazes have been prepared ready for brush application and usually only need to be shaken up before use, experience has shown that glaze preparation for our powder glazes must be carried out according to the following steps:

1. Provide the required mixing water according to the label (original unit) in a correspondingly large container. Since we only give guidelines (as a range), you should start with the lower range value - after all, it is easier to add water afterwards instead of removing it.
2. If you want to blend the glaze with powder additives like glaze binders, then we recommend to pre-mix the glaze powder with the weighed amount of additive by using a spoon.
3. Pour glaze powder into the mixing water with as little dust as possible. Usually a cone of powder forms afterwards, which protrudes above the water surface.
4. Let the glaze powder soak in for a few minutes and mix the slurry well with a hand mixer or electric blunger.
5. Stoneware glazes are raw glazes. These should be sieved, especially for application by pouring, dipping and spraying. This avoids glaze defects. To do this, use a standard 900 mesh glaze sieve and pour the glaze slip into it. With a harder bristle brush, lumpy components can be passed through with a little effort. Some glazes contain harder effect components (speckles), which cannot be pushed through the sieve. These components must be put back in the glaze container. Earthenware glazes are mainly frit glazes. Wet sieving is usually not necessary when applying, particularly by means of a brush.
6. If necessary dilute the glaze slip with water in order to achieve the required consistency. Add liquid thickening (flocculant) agents if necessary.
7. Leave the glaze to stand overnight so that the glaze binders (which you might have added later) can swell in order to develop their full effect.
8. Stir the glaze briefly (there must be no more sediment) and use it.

If you want to use e.g. the spraying technique, so that the glaze powder has to be grinded in a glaze mill, any effect components (speckles) that may be present must be sieved out before the milling and then added again afterwards. Glazes with cadmium inclusion pigments must not be processed in a glaze mill (you can find information on this for every glaze under acid resistance).