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Tam’s Techno Tips Or:
“Of Deflocculated Feet and Settling glazes”

| dreamt last night that my aching feet had deflocculated spreading over the ground like flaccid pancakes. The
cure? A hot solution of Epsom salts, The effect of this brew was magical as | plunged my puddled feet into its
warmth. The flesh and bone shrank right back to their svelte proportions and delighted by the rejuvenation, |
decided to treat the whole corpus , feeling that other areas might also benefit from re-flocculates. Alas! | woke
up! Obviously, the dream was the answer to a monthly problem -what to do about the techno tip?

Some glazes, particularly those with small percentages of clay, settle rapidly into a hard cake at the bottom of
the glaze bucket. Re-dispersion is laborious and time consuming. a teaspoon or so of a solution of
magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) causes the glaze particle to flocculate and settle into random clumps as
opposed to the structured layering of deflocculated glazes. This seems to slow down the settling, but more
importantly prevents the formation of those dense cakes. Re-dispersion is easily accomplished by simply
stirring the glaze. The Potter's Dictionary of Materials and Techniques by Frank Hamer - a must for the
bookshelf of any self respecting potter- gives more information about the wonders of Epsom salts.

P.S. Please send your tips to the editor lest | start having more serious nightmares.

P.P.S. Apologies for the error in the December tip on casting bodies, The revised formulate for recipe Number
2 (the second #1. formula in last months issue Oops)should have been:

Plastic Vitrox 14 kilos
OM4 Ball Clay3 kilos 3 kilos
SGP #1 Ball Clay 3 kilos
Silica 2 kilos
and

Sodium Silicate 65 grams
Sodium carbonate 65grams

Attention B.C. Potters Guild Members

The Guild would like to set up a registry among members residing in Vancouver area for the purpose of billeting out
-of-town potters, This would occur during local craft fairs, workshops and other special events concerning clay
related events. A programme such as this would help alleviate some of the costs for visiting artists as well as
providing hosts with the opportunity to meet other artists in the outlying or out-of -province community.

Any members able to host short term lodgings for out -of-town and visiting potters are urged to fill out the
accompanying application and send it in to the Potters Guild at 1359 Cartwright St. , Granville Island,
Vancouver, BC. YW6H 3R7

Telephone:

I can accommodate #

‘Thank you for your participation