Research
The K3 glaze project is a long term research project which started with a fascination of the most ‘simple’ glaze recipe I have ever seen: one third of kaolin, on third of quartz and one third of whiting. In my language the three ingredients start with a K so thats why I call it K3.
This research stated with the wondering: why is this melting on 1180°C? So I start testing and testing… You can find all the colours at this page on Glazy: K3 glazelibrary
“This glaze is developed in the K3 Glaze research project of Jeannine Vrins. The aim is to look for the lowest melting temperature, low amounts of colourants and frits and a low ecological impact.
The Kaolin in this glaze is a Polwhite from Imerys and has a low Alumina content and a higher KNa content than other kaolins. If you use another kaolin I suggest to find the right temperature which will be a bit higher than the 1180°C I fired these to a well molten surface. Another way to lower your temperature is to use a finer grained silica.
My firing schedule: 150°C/h to 1080°, 60°C/h to 1180°C, 10' soaking time and 200°C/h cooling to 950°C. I add 80% of water with some deflocculant, bentonite and cmc in it, a rheological mixture which makes it brushable and suspended.
On a tile of 10 square centimetres I use 10 grams of glaze. Test and experiment with this recipe before you put it on your work! I suspect you will have different results because you use different sources for your raw materials, a different kiln, different claybody, and a different artistic hand. I would be very happy if you add your pictures under mine in this K3 glaze library. The K3 Glaze library is part of my PhD research at PXL-MAD Hasselt.
I do not renew articles of this website every week but I try to post my latest tests, shapes, works on Instagram. I invite you to follow me:
