Beautiful Raku Glaze Recipe

Glazing pottery can be daunting, and for good reason--it's chemistry, and the deeper you get into glazing, the more complex it becomes. But don't let that stop you from experimenting with making your own glazes! It can actually be very simple, easy, and affordable to mix your own glazes. In this video, I show you several variations on a super easy raku glaze--it's a Paul Soldner recipe.

Clear/Transparent Raku glaze:
Gerstley Borate 80
Custer Feldspar 20
+ Gerstley Borate 1
+ EPK (Kaolin) 1

To which you can add:
*2.5-5 parts Copper Carbonate [turquoise in oxidation; opalescent/copper penny when heavily reduced in pine needles (the material used for reduction does matter, so experiment!); red/pink when reduced lightly in kiln]
*5 parts Manganese Dioxide [brown to black; the darkness of the brown varies with thickness of glaze application]

And, though I don't mention it in this video, some other common colorants and their resulting colors are:
-Tin Oxide [White] (5 parts)
-Cobalt Carbonate [Blue] (0.5 parts; Cobalt is a very strong colorant)
-and so many more...

[daleferguson]

you remind me of ....me, when i was younger. I am now 72 and have done raku professionally for 40+ years. I still get a kick out of it. Dale Ferguson

[HenhousetheRed]

Considering it's at least a thousand dollars for a medium sized professional kiln, it's actually really quite impressive you've managed to make your raku style glazes and get them to work from a homemade gas kiln.

[vicki]

The opalescent and copper colors are truly stunning. I have an old ceramic kiln and it would be fun to try to make a raku kiln out of that and the weed torch. Thanks for your straight forward instructions without any extra useless babble.

[joeBishop]

Really great stuff. I love the interior of that bowl that looks like copper foil.

[hanshans]

loving this ceramics series, please keep it going :)

[radiahsultana]

Beautiful colours copper andturquoise from outside inside amazing work.

[freedahlogic]

Absolutely wonderful YT channel. High production values so it’s watchable but more importantly the communication of the techniques is great and the notes with videos are fantastic. I hope you consider producing a simply produced ‘beginner firing and glaze recipes’ style of book. So much of what is available teaches perfection of technique whereas you really do teach the art. Cannot thank you enough.

[airstreamwanderings]

You have a great presentation style and useful interesting information. More videos please.

[haleywhitehall]

I love the unprocessed clay pieces. This is my first time finding your channel.

[bethbloomer]

Learning about mudfossils would up your pottery game, knowledge & understanding of the true geology hidden in front of our eyes.

[josephinehogg]

4:40 OMG! that copper glaze is just amazing! WOW it's beautiful! if you made the copper carbonate thicker, would it result is LESS crackle?

[ozzig.]

Hello from Chile, very nice work, i dont have that borate but i have gillespie borate, i will try it.

[listeningmiddle]

Stunning! But wish you had shown the whole process of firing and redux.

[lindalee]

At 5:28... I don't understand the reduce and cover and not cover do you have a video?

[beatrizsosa]

Maravilloso, hermoso, felicitaciones ❤️❤️
Amo el Raku ❤️

[vicfowler]

How might this recipe react if copper sulfate is substituted in place of copper carbonate

[jotsntittles]

Thank you
Q; Is there any way to figure out how to force just iridescent blue/green/copper?
Note I'd like do this with handmade clay beads.
If you have links/videos to learn this for beads & making the colors I'm looking for, this would be most appreciative.
Thank you again - very nice

[Can-rdyh]

Hello, I just asked myself if it would work to just grind glass bottles into powder and use that to make glaze?

[bonjour]

What temperature did you have and how long did you hold the temp? Great video, thanks.

[matthewsmith]

I love your presentation. Thank you so much. I'm new at making my own glazes and don't understand what actual quantity ( a part ) represents. You have 80% + 20% +100% ben then you a "part" what is the quantity of a part? Thank you in advance. Matthew