Practical Formulas Manual
Manual of Practical Formulas
A complete recipe book with more than 30 formulas, variations, techniques, and adjustments for glazes, slips, pigments, oxides, and casting slips.
Content Index 🎯
(Glazes · Slips · Clays · Color · Techniques · Adjustments)
- What is a ceramic recipe book and how is it used?
- How to read and understand a ceramic formula
- Differences between glaze, slip, oxides, and pigments
- Recommendations for making the most of the recipe book
- Organization for quick searching
- Digital vs. physical formats
- Examples of technical data sheets
- Checklist before new formulas
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How to choose formulas according to the type of piece (functional, decorative, or artistic)
- Essential tools: scale, sieve, containers
- How to weigh and mix correctly
- Preparation of small quantities
- Safety with oxides and pigments
- Types of sieves and their uses
- How to prepare base casting slips
- Small-scale tests
- Formulas for white, colored, and translucent casting slips
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Influence of water on the mixture: hardness, pH, and recommended proportions
- White, neutral, and vitrifiable slips
- Low and mid-fire temperatures
- Adjusting plasticity and adhesion
- Application on bisque or greenware
- High-fire slips
- Slips with special additives
- Use of frits to modify fusibility
- Textured slips
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How to adjust the base to prevent cracks, chipping, or poor adhesion
- Percentage guide tables
- Applying color without affecting the base
- Monochromatic, mottled, and blended slips
- Effects according to temperature
- Gradients and transitions
- Dry vs. suspended pigments
- Formulas for colored slips
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Guide to complex tones: how to mix pigments to achieve custom colors
- Glossy, satin, and matte glazes
- Recipes according to temperature (1040–1300 °C)
- Adjusting fluidity and transparency
- Compatibility with slips
- Glazes for reduction atmosphere
- Transparents with subtle tints
- Adjusting hardness for utilitarian pieces
- New variations by finish
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How to modify a transparent glaze to make it glossier, more matte, or more resistant
- Formulas by color (light blues, greens, pinks, blacks…)
- Recommended percentages
- Color behavior according to base and temperature
- Intense or soft colors
- Extended palette with new formulas
- Multi-color base glazes
- Methods to intensify colors
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How to stabilize problematic colors (reds, purples, intense blacks)
- Craquelé, crystalline, dry, mottled, metallic
- Movement or depth effects
- Special additives: silica, ash, carbonates
- Precautions for unstable effects
- Volcanic and iridescent glazes
- Ash glazes for electric kilns
- Glazes with metallic particles
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How to create controlled effects using double or triple layers of glazes
- Red, black, gray, beige, and other colored clays
- Coloring with oxides in the clay body
- Precautions for absorption and vitrification
- Combination with slips and glazes
- Marbled and mottled clays
- Inlays with colored casting slip
- Clays for fine modeling
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Compatibility between colored clays and glazes / slips
- Test tiles and proper labeling
- Recording key data
- Analysis and intelligent adjustments
- Personal formula archive
- Visual comparisons
- Changes in density and viscosity
- Printable templates
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How to interpret defects in tests (pinhole, crazing, running, bubbles, opacity, etc.)
- What to do if a formula fails
- Mistakes in mixing, application, or firing
- Adapting formulas to your kiln
- Closing and inspiration to keep creating
- Mistakes with casting slips
- Solution for glazes that pinhole
- Corrections before firing
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How to adapt formulas to different clays