So much for clearing the slab roller

This is why I had to clear the slab roller a week or so ago. Since it's my only working table surface it also serves as a temporary repository for freshly thrown pots, test tiles, and just about everything else that is waiting to be filed, dried, finished or stored.

Got  some good studio time to get a lot of those little containers of slip remixed, sieved and on to these test tiles. I also mixed up a green slip with 5% copper oxide. I'm happy with the white slip but want to incorporate a couple of old timey colors like the amber and copper that mimic the old lead glazes.

The studio heat was turned on at 6am, and I'll be back in the studio after breakfast to trim a couple of pots and get them slipped , then  continue mixing up a few more of those old test slips batches and get them on to the rest of the tiles.

 I want to weigh out a test batch of a copper green version of the Fake lead glaze, as well as another clear recipe I found on line yesterday. It's really simple - 88 Frit 3195 and 12 EPK.  I know that high alumina is what's needed to avoid the problem with these low fire, high boron clear glazes and frit 3195 has a lot of alumina and is also high in boron - more so than either 3124 and 3134. The person who posted this recipe raved about it and with only two ingredients  it makes an intriguing possibility.

My clear is very good but I have to be so careful to make sure it's thin enough, otherwise I get that white shadow on the red clay body, which is not pleasing, so I'm still hoping to find one that isn't so fussy about the thickness.

Todays "to do" list will probably fill up the day. It takes forever to mix up some of those older slip test batches. I've been doing it by hand which take a long time since so many of them are a pretty hard, gummy mass after sitting for months. Maybe I should put the old blender to work and save some time; but some of those containers have very little material left and I was concerned about losing too much of it by using the blender. At this point, I'm getting tired of this job so I might just might give up my luddite hand method and make the blender do the hard work.

These old blenders can be purchased very cheaply at charity shops and are great to have around the studio for mixing up glaze and slip test batches, and gums like CMC.