Raku Glaze Recipes

Raku Glaze Recipes, raku glaze recipes, raku glaze recipes. Thats what I've been working on lately.

I am compiling a nice data base of all the raku glaze recipes I have collected over the years and will probably have over 300 glaze recipes when the database is completed.

If anybody is looking for a particular raku glaze recipe, maybe I have it. I'd be glad to share it. Or if anybody would like to send me their favorite glazes, I'd be glad to add them to the database.

Anyway, enough of glaze talk. Last weekend my buddy John took a picture of me and Rusty. I can't believe its been almost two years since I built this kiln. I wish I had kept a firing log to give me an idea of how many times I've fired it up and how much gas I've used. Believe it or not I'm still on the 80-pound tank of propane. I've had it about four months and I've been firing almost every weekend.

In the back ground are my newest kilns--barrel kilns. The crappy 'ol rusty one behind me is John's old burn barrel. Although we got a brand new nice yellow one a few weeks ago, I didn't want to ruin a good barrel in case my first barrel firing was a failure so I used John's burn barrel for the first firing.

Since the barrel firing was a great success we'll take John's old crappy barrel to the dump and drill holes in the nice new yellow one.

Countdown to the next barrel firing has begun. Stay tuned.

Right off the wheel.

I need some more pots to barrel fire. These are about 8 to 10 inches tall.

With these pots I start with about a 4-pound ball of clay and wedge the clay to make the clay consistent throughout and to remove any air pockets, or bubbles. Wedging is just like kneading dough for breads, pizza, pasta etc.

Once the clay is wedged I center the ball of clay on the wheel and proceed to throw, pull and create my pot.

The final step before I remove the pot from the wheel is to smooth the entire surface with a thin metal rib. Ribbing or smoothing the pot makes it much easier to burnish the "leather hard" clay. Burnishing is the most time consuming part of the process and is what will ultimately give the barrel fired pot its polished, marble-like, appearance when pulled from the ashes.

After all the pots are burnished they will be bique fired in an electric kiln and then they will be ready for the barrel firing. If all goes well, and weather permitting, I hope to load and light the barrel in two weeks.

Soldner's Clear Crackle Glaze

This is a great example of Paul Soldner's Clear Crackle Raku Glaze. It is also a pretty nice tea bowl too.

The crackles come from pulling the piece of pottery out of the hot raku kiln and placing it in another container full of burnable materials, in this case torn up news papers and sawdust.

Once the pottery is placed in this reduction chamber, the burnable materials ignite, a lid is placed on the reduction chamber and smoke fills the cracks in the glaze.

The recipe for Soldner's Clear Crackle is 80% Gerstley Borate and 20% Nepheline Syenite.

Same Pot

Yes this is the same pot I posted photos of earlier, once in the burnished leather hard stage and the other in the bisque fired stage.

Burnishing the pot in its leatherhard stage gave it a smooth shiny surface and it retained that surface after the firing, but to give it a higher gloss I polished the pot with a bit of paste wax.

One thing I learned after the firing was that the copper carbonate if applied directly to the pot during the "loading" stage will mar the smooth shiny surface. You can see the greenish powder sprinkled on the pots in an earlier post and if you look closely at the top rim of this pot you'll see the effects of the copper carbonate.

In this first firing I also only had two burnished pots. The rest were unburnished, and although they had the same beautiful flash marks from the fire, the surface was rough and had a mat finish.

Pots Are Loaded

Loading the barrel.


First I dumped a medium-sized garbage bag of sawdust in the bottom of the barrel and placed my pots on top of that. The sawdust I got for free from a local lumberyard.

Next we sprinkled plant fertilizer around the pots. From what I've heard and read about, the plant fertilizer helps promote different flashes of color on the pots. Ok. I'll try it--$4.00 for a box of generic stuff at WalMart.

The next sprinkling was copper carbonate, purchased from a ceramics supply distributor. Thats about $7.00 bucks a pound and it is the greenish powder that is sprinkled next to and on top of the pottery. I was going to add some chicken bones and bannana peels, as one internet site suggested, but I was out of chicken bones and the peels were forgotten in the freezer at home. Oh well.

And finally, at the three o'clock position--a piece of copper pipe. This was Johns addition. I'm not sure what he thought it would or might do. In the end the pipe appeared to do nothing, as it was fully intact after the ashes were cleared.

Now on to the next step.

Layering of the Wood

We began placing wood in the barrel, first using
old dead grape vines. These were handy at the
burn pile and seemed to make a nice start.

After the really light stuff we went a bit heavier
with broken up pieces of slats and then pieces of
shipping pallets. In between we also sprinkled
some more fertilizer and copper carbonate.

Once the barrel was about half full I dumped a box of wood pieces from my friend Dave's garage. It was anything from plywood to other wood that he had built cabinets out of. And finally on top of that we addied the bigger hard wood, split hickory that John's brother Joe gave us.

Now that the barrel was fully loaded we were ready to light it up.

John Lights Up

Not a whole lot to say here. This is John lighting up the barrel, from the top,
using the torch from my raku kiln.

We figured the barrel would probably burn for about six hours and then take the rest of the night and early morning to cool down.

We had the burn rate about right. About 11pm the fire was going out. But, the pots were still hot the next morning when John pulled them from the ashes. In fact, he said he burned the middle finger out of one glove while removing the pots early Saturday morning.

No Turning Back

No Turning back now. By tomorrow morning we have a pile of shards, ugly pots, or....... a successful barrel firing.

Successful First Barrel Firing

And from the ashes came my first successful barrel firing.

Strange to say, but I haven't actually seen these pots yet. My guess is that my friend John was so excited to see the results that he couldn't sleep and he went out early this morning to check out the barrel. After which, this photo was emailed to me.

I don't know what John thinks, but I'm really happy with what I see. First of all I had never tried this type of firing before and I heard that breakage rates are high. I also didn't know what to expect--would 50% of my pots be broken? Would I get any colors at all on my pots, or would the surviving pots be an ugly black? I had no guidence on this other than a few posts I had read on the internet, and they talked about burning bannana peels and chicken bones. I mixed in some plant fertilizer and some copper carbonate. The colors look good to me. Maybe next time I'll try the peels and bones. Right now I've got to check out my new pots. Cheers!

Bisqued Pot

Since I am frequently asked, I thought I'd

explain to all my non-potter friends the various

steps or stages that go into producing a finished piece of pottery.

Pictured in this post is the same burnished pot I posted on Friday June 8th in its' leather hard stage.

Now the pot has been bisque fired. Bisque firing is kind of like a "pre-cooking" stage that basically takes out the molecular water so the pot doesn't explode in the final firing. Bisque firning also burns out the organic matter and makes the clay hard, yet porous enough to absorb glazes.

Since this pot will be barrel fired no glaze will be applied and it is now ready to be fired.

Most potters bisque fire, in an electric kiln, to temperatures between 1700 and 1800 degrees Fahrenheit and measure the temperature by using "cones" placed inside the kiln. I'll explain what the heck cones are and how they work in a future post. Next Post Up--Loading The Barrel Kiln.

On The Road To Barrel Firing

Yes! We're on the road to my first barrel firing. Last week John and I picked up a 55 gallon drum from the dump and this day John is drilling holes into the barrel to help air flow during the firing process. The holes were 1/4 inch in diameter and were drilled about 3 inches apart on each 3rd of the barrel. The drilling was easy and it took no time at all to punch through this old drum.

Ok, so what the heck is barrel firing--

Barrel firing is a modern day take-off of a primitive firing technique known as pit firing, which is the oldest known method of firing pottery. Basically, bisqued pots are nestled together in a layer of saw dust in the bottom of the 55 gallon drum and covered with dried organic materials such as wood and cow pies. What? Cow Pies? Well, Im not exactly sure about this but I believe cow pies were used because dried manure was a readily available source of fuel. Also I've read that the cow pies tend to burn real hot. I'll address the fuel more in-depth when we get to the firing part.

Anyway, Interspersed between the layers of wood and cow pies, copper carbonate, salt, plant fertilizer and even strange items such as bannana peels and chicken bones are added to produce flashes of colors during the firing process. These colors can range from pinks to reds, yellow and even brilliant blacks.

Firing in the barrel is the simple part, but breakage is high and getting the beautiful colors is the trick. Stay tuned. More to come.

Burnished Pot

I'm getting ready to jump into a new firing technique--barrel firing, and burnishing this little pot is just part of the process.

I'll get into the details of Barrel firing in another post. Here I'll just talk about how I burnished this pot.

I threw this form on the wheel and smoothed the wet clay as smooth as possible with a metal rib. When the pot was almost bone dry ("leather hard" in potters terms) I used a metal spoon to burnish the pot. It took about an hour, gently rubbing the spoon in circular motions. At this point the pot took on a nice glossy sheen. It was probably ready to fire at this time but I decided to try burnishing it again with a little bit of Crisco oil. I had read about this method on the internet.

I applied a light coat of oil with my finger, about two-inches square at a time, and then polished the area in circular motions with the bottom side of the spoon. This was repeated until the whole pot took on a high gloss finish. Holding it in your hands, it looks and feels like a finely polished granite or marble stone.

Julie's First Raku Bowl

What a crazy day. Weather looked good so we decided to glaze a few bowls at the college and head to the valley to fire up the kiln.

No sooner did we get the kiln loaded, it started to rain. Then it started to rain harder. Now, under an umbrella we heard a "poof!" "What was that?" She asked. Sorry dear. I just blew up one of your pots. What a sight: two despondent raku birds standing under an umbrella.

We were also going to try a horsehair pot, but Julie forgot her pot at the college. Even worse--I had a banded-up lock of horsehair hidden away under a tea bowl on the bench and it turned up missing, all but a couple strands. I think birds might have pilfered the hair for their nests. How I don't know.

The good news is the rain stopped and we reloaded the kiln to start again. The finished product: Julie's first raku bowl.

The blue glaze is a Soldner's Clear with 2 percent cobalt carb added. Julie's other two pieces were glazed with an opaque turquoise.

Next time we bring more pots and fire all afternoon.

Food Pantry Update

Just an update on my pots for food project. Last week my friend Lisa gave me 20 bucks to buy some food. This load went to the 28th Street Church of Christ in La Crosse. I traded her one of my first raku wood-fired tea bowls. 20 dollars buys a lot at the WalMart.

I bought oodles of ramen noodles, parmesan cheese, several cans of tuna fish, a few cans of ragu sauce, a bunch of canned vegetables, and even some boxes of animal crackers for the little ones.

Pots for food is off to a slower start than I expected but I'm going to be throwing a bunch of pots this week, will be firing them next weekend, and will be hitting up my friends for donations. You're warned.

Help Stock the Food Pantries

I need some help. There are hungry people that could use some food.

I'm willing to trade a piece of my pottery for a donation to the food pantries in the La Crosse, Wisconsin area.

My friend "The Reverend" Mike put it best: "The pantry is getting low. We have some pasta, but people need some meat to go with it."

If I don't personally hit you up for a trade, contact me. We'll work a deal. If you don't want to give some food, give some dough. Lets get the pantries stocked!

Wax Resist Tea Bowl

I don't know why I haven't tried wax resist with my raku pieces earlier.

I was expecting a turquoise crackle glaze but ended up with a burgandy maroon. The glaze I used was "Ferguson's Turquoise." If you look close, you can see one speck of turquoise on the lower left of the bowl.

Anyway, to acheive this result I glazed the interior of the bowl and then painted hot wax on the interior. Then I dipped the rim in the hot wax to create a nice even glaze line around the rim of the bowl.

Holding the bowl upside down by the footring I dripped hot wax over the pot (to drip the wax I used a two-inch paint brush) . Once that was dry I dunked the bowl in the glaze bucket two times. The glaze ran off the pot where there were traces of wax. Once the footring was sponged off I fired-up the kiln.

It was a really windy day to be firing and I think the reason why I got red instead of turquoise was I had a hard time controlling the environment in my kiln. I had kiln shelves set up as wind breaks but even they kept blowing down. I was just too anxious to fire. In the end it worked out quite well and I am very happy with the end result.

Rusty Raku

Rusty Raku turned a year old just over a month ago. Unfortunately I didn't keep a kiln log so I'm not sure how many times I've fired 'Ol Rusty, but I'm guessing about 60 to 75 times.

A recent addition to my burner set-up is the 100-pound propane tank that my friend John gave me.

I still have the small 20-pounders but am using the "Big Mamma" on the "Big Bertha" unless I'm taking Rusty on a Road Trip.

I'm keeping a firing record on the tank, writing with a permanent marker the dates and times of firing. I'm wondering how many firings I can get out of Big Mamma?

I kept this kiln outside for the past year covering the top hole with a piece of kiln shelf and laying a brick against the burner port to keep the critters out. It has been rained on and snowed on pretty hard and has held-up just fine, except for the rust on the outside.

I still have all the materials to make another kiln so perhaps I should tackle that project this spring and give Rusty a little brother.

No Raku Today

No Raku today, or tomorrow. Got hammered with snow this weekened. In fact, I think most of Wisconsin did. I wish I could have taken a picture of my kiln area but spent most the day shoveling and then didn't feel like making the drive. Probably wouldn't have been able to see it anyway. Maybe tomorrow.

Didn't throw anything, didn't fire anything. Dang! I've got a lot of catching up to do this week. I have a lot of high-fire stoneware pottery commisioned.

Would like to thank Richard in Terrell, Texas. He found my kiln building posts in my archives and created a real nice Adobe PDF document with all the text and photos. Hey Richard, sure wish I was in Texas this weekend. Thanks again. If anybody would like a copy, please let me know. I would be glad to pass it along. Well, I suppose I'd better sign off and get to some other things I'm behind on. More posts to follow. Cheers!

Red Raku Glaze

Finally, after a year of trying new glazes, firing them, experimenting with them, and modifiying them, I have found my Raku red. Call it lucky? A one-time red? No! Call it Cabernet Red, and its been tested and tested. The tea bowl ain't too bad either.

This was my first successful Cabernet Red tea bowl. There is very little smoke-filled crackling on the exterior of this tea bowl, but the inside has a nice faint crackle pattern throughout. I think this was the result of being over anxious and pulling it out of the reduction chamber too early. In any case, this bowl has become my favorite piece of pottery that I've made.

Last night I fired some more tea bowls just to make sure this wasn't a fluke . It was no fluke. This bowl has a beautiful smoke-filled crackle pattern inside and out.

To get a better smoke-filled crackle pattern I placed the tea bowls into the reduction chamber filled up with torn up newspaper, placed the cover on it and let it smoke for 5 minutes. Then I uncovered the container, and using tongs, pulled the pieces from the chamber and waved them around in the air, one at a time of course. You should have heard the crackle (it was pretty cold, about five degrees). After the "pinging" and crackling, I placed the bowl back into the reduction chamber, replaced the cover, and let it smoke another 5 minutes.

Now that I have my beautiful Cabernet Red I am going to experiment with some other decorating techniques using oxides, slips and wax resist.

Raku In 'Da Winter

This seems like Ground Hog's Day. The picture is one year old but, once again, last Sunday I was Raku-ing in the snow and cold. I was wearing the exact same snow gear, standing in the same amount of snow under a bright blue sky and wearing the same sun glasses.
The only difference being it was only zero degrees last Sunday, rather than sub zero temps, and my raku kiln is a bit more broken-in (rustier).
I've been testing and experimenting with new glazes since last year. I have compiled about a dozen that I really like but this Sunday I found my favorite. It is a beautiful burgundy/maroon. I'll have a photo to post in the next day or two. I want to use a different camera. Currently I am using an antique 1 Megapixel HP ('gonna have to invest in a better camera). Anyway, I should have the results of my firing posted soon. So, Please stay tuned.