Last week, I decided to make some of my tried and true ceramic glazes for a firing that I had planned. I typically add about a 1/4 cup of a dissolved epsom salt solution to a 5,000 gram bucket of new glaze to flocculate it.
This keeps the glaze in suspension and also aids problem settling or “hard panning” of glaze chemicals which makes it easier to stir and use again at a later date. After I made my glaze, I realized that I had used up my dissolved epsom salt solution and needed to make more.
The only problem is that I couldn’t quite remember the recipe or ratio of epsom salts to water. Google to the rescue!
Solving Glaze Settling with Epsom Salt Solution Recipe
The container that keep my epsom salt solution in holds 32 ounces of water. You would need to adjust your recipe depending on how much you need or the size of container that you will be using to store it.
- Heat 32 ounces of water and add to mixing bowl.
- Add 1/4 cup of epsom salts at a time to the water and stir to dissolve.
- When the epsom salts do not dissolve anymore, you will have your solution.
In my case, it worked out to about 2 cups of epsom salts to 32 ounces of water.
Although, after watching John Britt’s YouTube video, I should probably be adding a bentonite solution first before deciding whether I need epsom salt as well. His bentonite recipe is 2 tbsp bentonite to 1 cup of water which can then be added to the glaze at 1 tbsp increments.
Here is another great video where John Britt describes the difference between flocculated and deflocculated glazes, why it happens and what to do about it.
