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These are made by Barbara Childs Pottery. To keep costs down, they are undoubtedly using dipping glazes that they mix themselves. Although these look like two Potter's Choice glazes, PC-32 Albany Slip Brown and PC-20 Rutile Blue, Amaco did not invent them. Like the others in their product line, they simply drew on readily available pottery glaze recipes. But they didn't just use the recipes; they adapted and improved them. Consider the rutile blue. They are not using the traditional G2826R floating blue recipe, there are new and better ways using recipes like GA6-C and GR6-M. Likewise, with the other, they are not using the traditional G2415E Albany Brown recipe. Rather, they will have improved it (e.g. like I did with G3933G1). They also likely found a way to reduce or remove the lithium to cut costs. Maybe you are a hobbyist and don’t feel you need to DIY your costs down. But do your customers feel the same way? Not buying just ten small jars of brushing glaze will pay for a mixer and much of the ingredients to make gallons of each of these as dipping glazes. It will also set you on the road to gradually improving the glazes you use. And even reducing your prices.
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Left is G3933A, it is an 80:20 mix of our matte and glossy cone 6 base recipes (plus a mix of iron oxide, tin oxide and rutile). The body is Plainsman Coffee Clay. Because of repeated issues with crawling a project was started to create the same effect using Alberta Slip to supply as much of the chemistry as possible. Along that road, the opportunity arose to add lithium (to duplicate Amaco PC-32, a classic Albany/Lithium recipe). That is the glaze on the mug on the right, G3933G1, it has 6% lithium carbonate. Lithium is a super powerful melter, turning this into a very reactive glaze! To make a 500ml jar of brushing glaze, in 2023, required about $7 worth of lithium carbonate.
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These are GA6-C Alberta Slip floating blue (left), AMACO Potter's Choice PC-20 Blue Rutile (center), GR6-M Ravenscrag floating blue (right). The clay is M390. The firing is cone 6, the schedule is C6DHSC (drop-and-hold, slow cool). All of these recipes are descendants and improvements of the 50-year-old original G2826R floating blue. The inside glaze on these mugs is GA6-B. The two on the left develop the blue color because of the slow cool, the one on the right works on fast-cool (because it contains cobalt). Remember, floating blue is a rutile blue glaze, as such it works best on dark-burning bodies.
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