Here are a few slip tests from my last little test firing. From left to right are: 5% Mason stain #6315, next is the same stain with 10% stain, the first green is Mason Florentine stain 4%, the next one is 2.5% chrome and the last one4% copper carbonate and 14% Rutile. All of them have my new clear glaze.The claybody on all of them is Lagunas R2 earthenware.

There's a tiny bit of pinholing only on the two darker green tests, so something in that stain is causing this. Zinc could be suspect, but there's none in my slip or glaze on the one with chrome oxide. I'll have to get over to Mason's home page and see if I can find out what's in that Florentine green. The tiles were bisqued at cone 04 and glaze fired 04; but the guard cone in the Skutt kiln was 03 and bent enough to flip off the dawson kiln sitter. I'm not thrilled with these greens. The darkers ones are very flat in color. They might be better applied thinner to allow the clay to come through a little. I'll have to test that. The last green one in interesting but not a color I think I'd use. I'd like to test that rutile/copper combination but maybe try lowering the rutile. Another followup I'd like to do with a couple of these is to bisque even higher and then fire the glaze at C04 and see if the higher firing will stop the pinholes that are happening on some of these stain.

I'm taking this pre-lunch, blog break after a morning of garden chores. The raised beds are pretty well cleaned out, all the seedlings needing transplanting into potting soil are done and some others too young for that got transplanted in a better starting medium.

After lunch I'll transplant the lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and celery. It's going to get up to 72 degrees here today, so I'm taking advantage of these couple of warmer than normal days to get on top of these garden chores. Unfortunately the lawn guy severed an irrigation pipe when he moved a shrub for me, and he can't turn on the water until Wedneday - the earliest he can get here with parts to fix it. So that means I'll need to be hand watering all my planters as well as all the landscaping in the front. Oh joy- not!