Customer Reviews

Glazes Cone 6: 1240 C / 2264 F (Ceramics Handbooks)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not a recipe book or a catalog of glazes, nor is it a chemistry textbook. It focuses specifically on cone six oxidation (electrically-fired) glazes, with easy-to-understand charts of glaze properties, and simple explanations of the materials that create the different properties of glazes. This presentation allows the glaze creator to predict where any glaze they make may fall in terms of its firing properties, with particular emphasis on coefficient of expansion. This is an important factor in glaze design since it determines 'glaze fit': whether a particular glaze will craze or even cause cracking in the clay beneath it. This topic has seldom been explained with such clarity and simplicity.

Each broad type of cone six glaze (matte, glossy, low-expansion, porcelain, etc.) is discussed, and charted for comparison with other cone six glaze types. 'Special' glaze types are also mentioned, including Chun glazes, Bristol glazes, crystalline glazes and single-firing glazes for greenware.

Methods of calculating glaze formulas are reviewed in this book also, covering the conversion of a recipe to its unity formula and percentage analysis. Not an in-depth course in calculation, but a basic introduction for the novice, or a handy review for the more experienced (but not yet expert) glaze developer.

Recipes are given for each glaze type, but they serve less as suggestions for glazes to use than as typical examples for comparison. Colorants are discussed in a basic way, but are not the focus of this book.

Photos are given for each example discussed, featuring test tiles of each glaze arranged for easy comparison. Not many pictures of pretty pots here, just consistent, representative photos of glaze samples of the sort shown on the cover, and pictures of a few actual ceramic objects to demonstrate the appropriateness of various glazes in practice.

The appendix contains a useful chart of the chemical compositions of many common ceramic materials used in the US and UK (where the author resides).

This book is an excellent aid to making cone six glazes from scratch. It's not quite a 'start from zero' book, but a useful supplement to the standard studio-ceramics textbooks. Easy to understand, not scary, and does not presume an extensive chemistry or mathematics education, though a high-school-level background will be helpful. This is a book for the ceramist who has been using existing glaze recipes, but is now ready to find out how they work and to develop their own.

While this book does a great job of explaining certain aspects of glaze theory, the way in which it is approached did not leave me, an American potter, with a lot of useful information.
The first half of the book goes into great detail about glaze theory, with many clear charts and graphs to illustrate the author's points. I found it to be easy to understand and very thorough. Proportions of silica, alumina, and fluxes are discussed, explained, and diagrammed. Also, there are many glaze tests illustrated.
The second half of the book deals with specialty glazes and provides recipes from potters. These are also well documented and illustrated.
This book was written in the UK and seems to be geared almost exclusively to the UK potter. This is not a bad thing for a UK potter, but does make it less useful in the US in terms of the way that we usually formulate glazes here. In my experience, most Cone 6 glazes in the US are formulated with boron. So learning about boron's effect on glaze analysis is essential. The author declares at the outset that he will not be explaining boron in terms of glaze theory, and it is discussed only in terms of its use in a specialty Chun-type glaze. Also in the US, we tend to avoid the use of zinc in glazes, since it has a negative effect on many colors. Almost every glaze analyzed in this book has a significant portion of zinc.
Although the theory is clearly explained and this book may be a useful reference for that part, I found much of it to be useless for my work because of the exclusion of boron and the use of zinc.

After Snail Scott's review, there's not much to say, as she gives an excellent and in my opinion, accurate overview of the book.

I myself was disappointed, however. A few factual errors are indicative: zinc is NOT an alkaline earth, but a transition metal; and while magnesite is ideally magnesium carbonate, not all magnesium carbonate is magnesite, that is, the two are NOT synonymous. Also, I was perplexed by the insistence on using zinc oxide in nearly all the bases; not only is it expensive, but it also has a powerful (and usually undesirable) effect on most colourants.

Maybe I just got used to superb glaze references, and was expecting more. Even so ... a decent buy, and it gave me a few good ideas, but I'm slightly regretting having bought it. (I would, however, recommend Clay and Glazes for the Potter and The Ceramic Spectrum: A Simplified Approach to Glaze and Color Development.)

This book contains a few interesting recipes that you cannot find from Internet. Providing with more recipes and color images of examples,it is more fun to read than the Cone6 glaze book written by John Hesselberth and Ron Roy. Some of the raw materials are only available in UK but we probably can find substitutes here in US.

This book is the clearest introduction to the silica-alumina-flux triangle, unity formula, and general glaze theory that I've read. As much as I value "Mastering Cone 6 Glazes," I wish I'd bought this book first. The two mesh together well, but GC6 gives a more solid foundation for understanding what MC6G is talking about.

In general, I don't disagree with other reviews of this book, but I think some of them are missing the point.

The whole point of the book is glaze theory, formulation and testing methods. It's not a catalog of glaze recipes, it's a course on how to formulate and test your own glazes based on an understanding of what makes glaze work. It's the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish... the author needs to show you some fish during the teaching, but the point isn't for you to eat his fish, it's for you to go catch your own.

The base glazes are examples to demonstrate the methods... they aren't necessarily meant to provide a catalog of working glazes and don't need to be the reader's starting point. It is unfortunate that a book published in the US is so slanted toward British glaze tradition, and a novice may be unlikely to realize that zinc oxide is less used in the US (I didn't realize the bias until it was pointed out to me), but the value of the book isn't in recipes.

Some specific issues with other reviews:

The author devotes a full chapter, 9 pages, to discussing boron (boric oxide) in cone 6 glazes, in addition to continued discussion in the section on Jun (Chun) glazes. It's the only material that gets its own chapter. (Contrary to another reviewer's statement that the author claimed he would not cover boron and did not outside the Jun glaze chapter. I'm beginning to wonder if a reprint involved a significant revision without calling it a new edition.)

The Gallery, the section of other potters' work, is a mere 16 pages (and is traditional). The section on specialty glazes (Jun, orange red iron, luster, and raw glazes) is 12 pages, and still has very useful information for a general understanding. So what another reviewer described as "half the book" is 28 pages out of 128... a fifth, not a half.

I purchased my copy from Amazon mid 2010 and it was a usual paperback binding, not spiral-bound.

This book is useful for those hobbyist who are getting into glaze development and may not know all the permutations available for glazes. It is nice in that the color tiles often portray the effects of graded additions, allowing the beginner to see trends of effects produced by various components. I found this book helpful, and also agree with the other review about some factual errors and UK slant.

Great Intro book to glazes, and easy to understand! Has beginning glazes for easy testing, and more detailed glazes for those that are more advanced. Really breaks down how and why different properties work. Great book

My only complaint was the UK ingredients...HOWEVER, I was able to find, with a lot of research and help from Hammill Gilespie, Minex, Standard, EPK Fla. etc., suitable substitutions here in the USA. The photographs are extremly good tho I'm not wild about spiral binding. It would have been nice to have had more information on Raw Materials. All in all its a very fine recipe book.

This book is interesting for anyone who studies glaze or wants to make some glazes of their own (even if their working at different temperatures).