Glaze Mixing - Vacation Day Two

Yesterday afternoon, I bought and filled a new propane tank. I went to a local hardware store for the tank filling, and they had a selection of metal trash cans (the major chains in my area don't). We bought two ash cans for reduction chambers, and one large trash can for bigger projects, as well as holding all of the burnt debris.

I mixed three glazes today. I went through six ponds of Gerstley Borate today.

I first made a two gallon batch of Seth's Luster. I sorted out the five bags of chemicals that I needed, then I used a digital kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients. Gerstley Borate, Bone Ash, Cobalt Carbonate, Copper Carbonate, and Tin Oxide all went into a clean bucket, then I covered the chemicals with water. Air bubbles rose to the surface, and would emit a puff of dried powder as they popped, so the glaze bucket had a foggy haze of chemicals above it for a few minutes. I mixed with a whisk, then used a long handled spoon to dig the dried chemicals out of the corners at the bottom of the bucket. Lastly, I strained the glaze through a sixty mesh sieve to remove any large particles. The sieve always gums up, so you put a hand in the glaze, and run the tips of your fingers over the surface of the mesh to gently push stuff through.

The second glaze is called Copper Red. It is a shiny raku glaze, that is green under oxidation, but copper penny in reduction.

The last glaze was a test batch, where I mixed a hundred grams of our Louden's Base raku glaze with four grams of Spanish red iron oxide. I am looking for a transparent honey or amber raku glaze.