Kiln Wash Recipes Ceramics

The primary purpose of kiln wash is to prevent your glaze from sticking to the kiln shelf should it come in contact with it during firing.

Kiln wash recipes ceramics.

Kiln wash recipes here are a few kiln wash recipes from an article i wrote for ceramics monthly. Have not had to put kiln wash on shelves for so many years that i have lost my original october 7 2010 self leveling kiln wash. Kiln wash is basically a combination of alumina hydrate epk and water potters paint this on the kiln shelves to help prevent pots from sticking too the shelves. So this 50 alumina 50 epk recipe has way too much epk causing way too much shrinkage.

The solution to this is to substitute some of the epk with calcined epk. Cracking flaking kiln wash. If glaze runs while the kiln is firing it can bond to the kiln shelf just like it bonds to the pots. Consideration of kiln wash might help potters avoid some of the common kiln wash headaches like scraping cracked kiln wash off shelves or lamenting an otherwise perfect piece that was ruined by a flake of kiln wash.

Glaze usually only comes in direct contact with the shelf when something goes wrong. This week s tip of the week comes to us from ceramic artist sylvia nagy of brooklyn new york. The type of kiln wash needed varies for each specific situation because some potters work in electric kilns at low fire temperatures while others work with fuel fired kilns at very high temperatures. Also referred to as shelf primer kiln wash is a liquid substance that is brushed onto kiln shelves to prevent glaze from an art piece sticking to the shelf.

If continue reading kiln wash recipes. Wednesday october 7 2009. Kiln wash is used in the full range of ceramics firing from cone 022 to cone 14 and everywhere in between. I do this with glazes and i do it with kiln wash.

Basically the gist of the article is that for some reason the most widely used recipe happens to be a really bad recipe. I began with john britt s ceramics monthly article on kiln wash which was an excellent starting point. Kiln shelves are normally made of hard ceramic just like your pots so if glaze melts directly onto a kiln shelf it will stick. Same with kiln wash.

I also included several suggested wash recipes that came in the letters column later. Various posts on pottery glazes and miscellaneous life adventures. Need a good kiln wash recipe for cone 6 posted in clay and glaze chemistry.