Rein red (cone 6 tin chrome red glaze part 1)
Over the past 3 years or so I've been talking to a glaze fanatic; we will call him Rein. Rein has been slowly egging me to make glazes I dislike. I know, I know, I am a hipster with glazes. He knows I have a hard spot in my heart for tin chrome reds. It’s to such a point that I will buy work with amazing tin chrome red applications. My hated for the glaze wraps all the way back around to admiration. So of course he challenges me to make one I’m satisfied with. Well, here we are. Were making a glaze called Rein red and were doing it the way I wanna do it because it’ll bug him a little. Lets start with the basics.
Tin chrome reds are generally an oxidation fired glaze with chrome oxide and tin oxide. When combined they produce a purple…..pink….burgundy….ish color. The range of how dark or light the “red” can be in a tin chrome red is based on the glaze base and amount of tin / chrome . Notice I keep saying “red”. That’s because this is not red to me whatsoever. I will die on this hill. Tin chrome reds are so difficult to get anywhere near the real color red that I often call it burgundy or dark pink. There are a few I like though. I am personally very fond of the Tin chrome that clayscapes sells, Clinton pottery red, mostly because you can lower the specific gravity (ratio of water to mineral) in the glaze to get a white running effect with drops of red. This type of glaze is very sensitive to application, SG, recipe, and viscosity (which is why I imagine he wanted me to make it. Lets look at my first try.
Rein red test #1
SG: 1.5
Cone: 6 ox
Application: 4 second dip
Clay: Laguna porcelain
Notes: ok…. That was easy. I like it, I like it a lot infact.
Same tile but the back
Notes: I can’t quite figure out of the white is because of the melt “a hotter firing” or if the SG is too high. Generally people aim for a solid color. Of course, I want the versatility of lowering the SG for white/ red but we have to establish a base of color before tuning.
The strange is that this is 0.08% iron chromate (I'm not using regular chrome oxide because it’ll bug him) and 11% tin. I am aware that the chrome has to be very very low. At times my scale has trouble registering 0.1 and below amounts but 0.08 should be almost light eggplant color. When you see test #2 you will understand why I was asking if the white is due to over firing or SG.
Red rein (still test #1)
Sg 1.4
Application : 4 second dip
Clay: porcelain
Cone : 6 ox
See, Told you. A lighter SG with this type of glaze will = more white if you do it right. Compair this glaze to the 1.5 SG test you can see it easily.
Let’s look a test #2
Rein red test #2
Now here is the strange one
SG: 1.5
Application: 4 second dip
Clay: laguna porcelain
Cone: 6 ox
Notes: the strange thing about this one is that this was 0.5 iron chromate. The last est was 0.8. Why did I get more red? IDK. I do see a little white up there though.
The next test were going to try 0.1 iron chromate.
Test number 2 was weird. Did you see the last test? It was 11% tin and 0.08 iron chromate. I really liked it. I would like it to be a little more white on the melt and “red” on the flow but I think that’s an application thing. Here in test #2 I put less tin and it came out…. The opposite of what I want. Well it turns out I messed up. I put in 0.2 in on accident…..
The color is no longer the deep purplish red I like but instead it’s an eggplant color with white specks. I hate it. The next test were going to go down to 0.05% iron chromate and do a small test with going up to 0.07.
