Some things I'd try: I think your salt is too dilute still, even though the solution is saturated. I bet you want a literal paste of solid salt. Remember that you need a significant amount of flux relative to the thing you're trying to dissolve in the flux, so it's beneficial to have lots and lots of flux volume. Take pottery glazes for example: the total fluxing ingredients are often 50% of the glaze itself. Another thing to note is that table salt melts a little close to the 800c you're firing at. Consider doing a eutectic mix that melts at around 700c? Furthermore, salt is known to be volatile when molten, so you might be losing a significant amount of it when it does evaporate. Perhaps avoid chlorides/halides and favor things like carbonates /alkali oxides. To this end I'm thinking some non-salty soda ash (the alkaline kind made from wood ash) is more beneficial to you. Also consider the role the clay plays. There might be some interaction between your flux and clay minerals that combines to make a sort of permanent glaze which acts as the binder for your pigment (because the salt alone is water soluble and would not be a fast binder)
Yes , I agree , all very good points. I am still experimenting with natural playa salts , or salty clays near Mimbres people and finding a natural salty clay with suitable firing range AND low solubility has still been my biggest challenge. IF in fact sodium’s are key ingredient, which after three years of research and testing I still feel sodium is playing some role. Be it natural occurrence or deliberate additive. Cheers all!
Agreed; as the end of the video also shows you need a good quantity of flux; so crystalline ground to a paste is probably best. As you say by playing with mixtures of salts you can drastically lower the melting point. Pure chlorides might be hard to melt but mixtures of sodium-potassium-magnesium-calcium chlorides can have very low melting points indeed. Just by mixing sodium and potassium you can get under 500C. You can get such a mixture liquid on a stovetop; I did once, and it turned into a giant mess; since it straight up dissolved my clay crucible. I think thats mainly the molten calcium chloride thats just an insane mineral-dissolver / etcher. Worth experimenting with those; though where to source these ingredients in the wild isnt super obvious I suppose. I guess you can harvest caCl by boiling down snow melt after the deicing truck has passed by :P
That was a heroic quest, Andy! And despite the frustration and repeated disappointment, it turned out to be one of your best videos ever! I can't wait to try it at home.
Glad you liked it. It is fun to experiment and share my failures but I sometimes question whether people will find it entertaining. So thanks for the feedback.
@@AncientPottery it's definitely entertaining. Also allows us beginners to gauge how far from the mark or even how close we're getting in comparison. Thanks
As ceramics major in art school this is so fascinating to me; you're essentially making oxide wash (which is just 50/50 oxide and gerstely borate). Its just so cool to me that youre such a great potter and youve gone about it in such a different way!
Just discovered this channel. So cool to see a person who is passionate about their hobby/craft and who is willing to share the information in such a positive way.
I loved following your quest for knowledge. It’s equally important to find what doesn’t work as it is to find what does. Thankyou for another such video. Your enthusiasm is contagious.
This might be one of your best videos. Thank you oh so much for not ending it early. I'm sure your on the right path. I personally think the fluxes would have been processed to dry. Either for ease of storage or ease of trade and transport
Great video. Yesterday I made a paint of ground dry ingredients- borax, galena, manganese dioxide, copper carbonate, clay. Then added water. The result was excellent glaze. Fluxes must be important.
That's great Wes. I am writing an email to Mary Ownby to get her thoughts on all this. I think there are many mysteries in ancient Southwest pottery that could be answered by fluxes.
Great video! Try calcining the ash from the burnt salt brush to get a cleaner product. You could bake the ash in a container up to a few hundred degrees to get the carbon/impurities to burn off. Calcining the other brines might help too by converting them from chlorides to oxides or something. Thanks Andy! Very informative as always
@@AncientPottery Just yesterday I watched a show on how they make salt from river reeds in Africa. It shows the steps to getting pure salt. th-cam.com/video/PNjynDybHxE/w-d-xo.html It’s at 28:30
Just a note, I am still on the quest and making interesting findings still related to local materials , and cultural ways of life and how all these things could have contributed to fantastic pottery. I recently was able to gather a material in the area that is showing some real promise! Firing range is key. And I still find sodium’s key.
I am not a potter (yet) but am a chemist, and a lot of the comments noting a need for more concentrated salt make chemical sense. I think you are on the right track with materials selection; but might need a more complex mixture. When you mentioned that that clay "contaminate" in the playa salt was was so loathe to settle out it made me think that this may be a key ingredient to make things work. Difficulty settling means small particle size, which means a lot of surface area and direct contact with the salt. If you take this and grind it like you do clay, then add pigment and apply as a paste you might have an interesting test indead! Mixing the playa salt and the ash together would be a worthy test as well! I love what you are doing with the channel and look forward to watching your videos, thanks so much!
A spectacular ending, it was clear that the more the salts dissolved, the less it worked, but only you who have the perseverance to try again and again and again, even without us watching. Thank you!
Using salt as a flux is so cool! I know this video is from a while ago but I find that adding vinegar to the clay slurry helps it settle out. Without the vinegar it will sit for days and never settle.
I'm in love with your videos and admire your drive to get it right ! I also love your overall outfit in the 3rd ending ! It make me smile and I thought I would share the smile with you !
you might also want to try using sodium silicate(water glass) and Gerstley Borate which are found in nature as well, those are strong fluxes we use in pottery often. A student of mine doing her final project on paper clay, experimented adding 5-10% paper pulp into glazes, and seemed to lower the melting point of the glazes as well. So maybe worth a try to add moist pulp from the native dessert plants/ wood saw dust into your oxides and see if that can work as flux as well. Keep doing these experiments, they are interesting!
I think u might need to heat to a sweet spot between the melting point and the boiling point of the salt for the salt glaze not to boil off maybe. The ending (no spoilers) made a lot of sense too.
Andy, I just love your pursuit of experimenting on behalf of all your viewers. I am new to all of this clay finding and out door firing, but I am absolutely fascinated with your videos, and hope to meet you one day and come to one of your workshops.
Great work Andy, I have loads of salts in my clays. None of the surfaces ever glaze. I like the idea but I think salts fume and can turn white to gray, also with those fine lines the Mimbres painted the lines may get muted together. I’ve heard the Mata Ortiz guys talk a cobalt I think it was made a super black. But it would flake off. I dug a red clay one time and used it as a painting and it turned pitch black but flaked off. It was to pure. 😀
Hey Tony, I think you misunderstand my goals here. I am not trying to make black paint or glaze. I am just trying to see if I can use salt to make minerals stick to the pots. And I have made it work, I am using a LOT more salt than you have in your salty clays, something like 50% salt is being added to the ground minerals. I am not done experimenting so there is still much I don't understand. I have had some of that fuming but not in all or every case, so I also want to understand why it happens in some cases but not every time. Thanks for the insight.
Great experiment! I was trying to figure out why your first try had sputtering and vapor deposition, then it all seemed to make sense when you said the salt granules on that bowel weren't fully dissolved. Although this result lacks the crispness of lines we see in ancient pottery, it is still very intriguing. (1) What do you think of brining the slip as well? It might give more consistent results than trying to keep salt grains in the paint. Could also dust the slip with salt while it is still wet, might affect the surface texture I suppose, finer might be better. (2) What if you used something other than water in the paint? Mineral oil, animal fat, etc., something which salt isn't so readily soluble in. (3) I made a fair bit of black powder in my youth and one thing which really affected the result was to dry mill the ingredients together prior to wetting and granulating. So, maybe try dry milling the salt and pigments together to bring the molecules into close contact then wet with an already saturated brine. I used a ball mill for the GP, sufficiently milling by hand would probably involve more than running the mix through a corn grinder a couple of times - I'd say it would be like adding salt to whatever dry process you'd use to reduce pigment particle size from good enough to extremely smooth (fine).
Not sure about brining the slip but Jeff Cooper has done some experiments with that so he may have some feedback. I am definitely not trying for an all over glaze. Maybe oil might be worth a try. Traditionally organic binder is added, and although it is water soluble, it could help to hold the salts in place. I like the dry milking idea, that is actually what I did to get that paint that went full glaze on key first test bowl, so definitely more of that. Thanks a lot for the good ideas and feedback.
Your perseverance is inspiring. I actually love your "test" design bowl. The simple grouping of lines, each with its own personality and history, right? Off topic, but I recall hearing that (Navajo?) potters would put dry crushed clay into baskets, and toss the contents repeatedly. The finer clay particles would become airborne and be collected on sheets (skins?) on the ground. After struggling with both wet and dry processing, I'd like to try this....see how it goes. Have you heard of this method?
Yes, this process is called winnowing and it is one of the best primitive methods of screening any material. Glad you liked my bowl, sometimes the simplest designs are the best IMO.
Great video and awesome experiments! Looks promising, can't wait to see future videos on this topic! I need to play around with that salt stuff some. That new background is awesome btw!
Thanks, I hope you give it a try, I am about ready to use it on an actual pot (not and experiment). And thanks on the background too, I am not quite done with it yet.
Revisiting this video. And still experimenting, I’m finding iron oxide based paint must reduce at the same time as the salt melts to capture the reduction and also prevent iron crystals to form in the cooling creating an opportunity for oxygen to react again. And some clay iron paints reduce at very different temps. Cheers !
We tried the juniper ashes, and I used charred ashy stuff that looked like yours, the results were exact. I am going to try burning a lot more wood and getting a lot cleaner ashes. There is a minoan potter on you tube that uses ash only with his iron oxide, no other fixative. I am sure we may be on to something, and I am ready to be done with these salt questions,.. I want answers and we will let you know our results as well. The copper carbonate we used fumed all of our pots because an air vent was sealed by a bowl. The copper fumes stayed inside the bucket that we fire in and the fume stayed trapped in with the pottery the entire firing. This produced the same fume that your copper did.. Great video, Sir!
Thanks for the info, looking forward to hearing what you find out. Tori Hoopes is also working on this right now so a lot of us are working on it we should figure something out soon.
@@AncientPottery Can we get the link to the video of the Minoan potter? Ash and iron oxide is something I'm working on and it would be interesting to see how it's mixed, applied and fired. Thanks!
@@torihoopes I found that malachite powder glazes slightly with only an organic binder and 10% clay, but at about 1000 Celsius, and I found that some types of feldspar has a lower melting temperature than copper, so I am working on getting the right feldspar. I am willing to go as far as this... LOL! We are going to mix the feldspar and ashes with iron, and then we are going to mix feldspar and ashes with copper, and then, if no glaze this time, I am moving on and letting you all figure it out. 🤞
Excellent series of experiments! Looks like something I would have pursued. 😁 If I can ever so slightly involve a touch of chemistry, what you really need to inspect is how your materials are bonding with your clay, by which I mean what is being exchanged and removed molecularly between the pigments and the flux. Salts are excellent binders to ceramic media of which properties greatly change depending on the combustion environment. They do best with a reduced oxygen atmosphere to neutral, though it's difficult at best to monitor in a wood-fired kiln in open atmosphere. Another common salt to try would be magnesium sulfate, better known as epsom salt. In combination with alumina and phosphoric acid, it was a precursor to firebricks in the early days of the industrial era. Your manganese oxide is considered a catalyst (or flux with pottery) at accelerating the combustion of other materials it is mixed with, as are copper sulphates; you can find the latter primarily as root killer in crystalized form at a hardware/home improvement place or a large bag online through amazon and such. I would probably try a stack of small tiles in your kiln application of choice just to try as many combinations as possible in one go.
I got quite frustrated with my experimentation. Clearly I am not a research analyst etc. but this has renewed my interest and given me more ideas for my experimentation. I am just trying to get Manganese Dioxide to work. all failure so far but more to follow.
Seeing all these tests, all these failures gives me great admiration for the ancient potters and their trials and tribulations. You may be exasperated from all or these experiments but it really has opened my eyes to the greatness of the ancient potters. Also now we know why the ancient archeological sites have so much broken pot shards underfoot: failed firings. If only we could hear all of the ancient cuss words that went along with those broken pots! 😂 Pete
Really interesting. You'd think that once the water in the paint had evaporated, that brine would be back to concentrated pure salt, so perhaps it's just a matter of quantity? there's a lot more salt involved when you use the crystallised form? I don't know anything about pottery or glazes, but I'd be very curious to see what happened if you used as high a percentage of salt you could, and also whether painting a salt paste/crust over the top of the paint did anything.
I SO love your approach to finding out how things work!!! I think someone else said this....and I'm so ignorant of all this I hesitate to say anything. But....if one put a brine solution in a clay pot... wouldn't the water evaporate and go through the pot...but leave the salt behind on the inside of the pot? Then one could add that salt to the paints. 🤷♀️
Generally if there is an abundance of salt in the clay body, it will works its way to the surface as the pot dries. The salts being water soluble will travel with the water as it dries out of the pot. This can have some benefits but more often than not it actually becomes a hindrance to the potter and their results.
Good idea but salts destroy pottery. So the salt would not only be deposited inside the pot but also inside the very walls of the pot where they would recrystallize and cause it to break and spall. I think the metal pot is better because I don't have to damage a pot.
Great video, thank you for your persistence! Could it be that there are other trace elements in the ash you gathered that are reacting with the salt/oxygen? Perhaps more processing is needed to extract just the flux you're intending, though I don't have an idea of what type of processing may have traditionally been done. Additionally, you said your control was "table salt", which is not NaCl alone, but contains Iodine and possibly anti-clumping agents. I realize you might be using "table salt" to refer to non-iodized, store-bought salt, but that still may contain anti-caking agents. Perhaps that is a variable as well? Something like a sea salt or kosher salt would be closer to pure NaCl or NaCl with other trace elements similar to what you're likely getting from your salt-ash solution. Best of luck in your future experimentations!
Yes, I want to try the salt brush ash again. And yeah the table salt has iodine (no anti clumping ingredients that are listed in the ingredients list) it was a good control because I had already shown that it worked to make the paint stick.
Well sure, clay is full of silica so if nothing else it could use the silica on the surface of the pot, but some paint recipes include a little clay too.
What would happen if you added salt to your white slip so that it would melt in similar way? Think it would seal the porous surface to become more 'food safe' ? That could be content for another video of experimental archaeology. Successful or failure, I think would be good to watch.
Admiring how you question and pursue answers with great determination, I wanted to ask a question which struck me during this video regarding the use of "table salt"... common table salt usually has additives to keep it from clumping; it's not pure sodium chloride such as pickling salt. Although those additives constitute only about 3% of the product, it can make a big difference when working in the kitchen... could it also make a difference with applications for firing pottery?
Hey Andy, very interesting video, definitely needs a follow up. Also i have a question: what would be the easiest method to make a pot, waterproof enough to allow brine pickling in a primitive setting? is it only achievable in stoneware temps? your video made me wonder if it can be done with a fluxed slip at low temps.
I think starch, milk or oil sealing would work.. Your biggest issue would be you might possibly need to top up your brined if it starts to become to low. There shouldnt be much loss from a fell sealed pot, yet if there is some loss and you replenish then you should be ok
I have had this question before and I'm just not sure. Probably the best primitive sealants are milk and oil, neither are 100%, so you will lose some moisture.
try concentrated ammonium acetate as an additive to all kinds of metal oxide based colors, it even dissolves lead oxides. was used to clean old lead relics. it might improve the melting into the ceramic of all kinds of metal pigment based colors.
Very cool Andy! Loved the video and your test approach. Been so darn windy here and I’m bogged down with production wheel pottery orders I have NO TIME for primitive pots 😢 back at soon I hope.
@@AncientPottery for what’s it’s worth, I have had some time with sherds and a low power microscope. It looks as though some pots where either painted over twice before firing or possibly repainted and fired again. Some lines look layered . The “wicking” of the sodium’s you mentioned is an issue for me as well, but what if repainted with a less absorbent surface? This stuff drives me nuts but I love it !
Great video, and thank you for being so persistent! Just thinking here... I think it makes sense that salt in solution would not melt so easily, becausebit instill chemically bound to other substances that have a higher melt point. I wonder if you can make crystalline salt from the playa and the saltbrush?
Good points, thanks for sharing your thoughts, I am planning more experiments right now. My find Tori said she was able too get saltbush ash to crystallize so I need to try that again.
Have you ever tried using uric acid (urine) on pots? Seems to me that would be the most readily available thing (in primitive terms). Maybe boiled down (outside of course) till concentrated. Possibly mixed with wood ash? Would make for an interesting video at least.
I would add other types of natural flux like bone(calcium) and Feldspar, sulfur. Also mix in seaweed ash, water plants have different minerals composition.
@@AncientPottery sodium boils around 880c, salt helps flux but it gassefies instead of staying in glass form. Calcium stays until 1400c but it will need help of the salt in outdoor firing. I would help hash it out but i'm busy with my kiln, love your videos!
Salt glaze is a think. Some of our oldest pickling crocks are salt glazed. Often recognised by their crackled appearance. But its generally achieved via a kiln and higher temps than what Andy archives in his surface firings.
I thought the point of a flux was to enable melting of some components of the clay at lower temperatures, something like forming a eutectic mixture with the silica grains. Maybe it just has no effect on the metal oxides at all?
A flux can be used to melt all kinds of things. In this case I am not wanting to achieve glaze, although I have shown that it can be done, but I am just wanting to make the mineral (iron, copper or manganese) sinter
OMG I think i just thought up a fun and exciting challenge for you Andy and your followers... I have watched I think every one of your youtube videos. many more often then once. The more i practice and follow your guidence the better my hand building skills have developed. One thing I find most noticeable is how the brain remembers. Like the thickness of the pot walls and such. So back to the challenge Would you consider... Building a pot or bowl blindfolded? I'm very curious how that would go. You do very impressive work that has taken you 30+ years to master and your videos make that apparent to those who are trying to follow along with you. So please would you try my challenge? Nothing big or painted or decorated unless you wanted to. Maybe like your "One Coil Challenge" but blindfolded? I dont think i could do it. But could you?
If you want cleaner ash, you need to burn it at a higher temperature for longer. The salt crust from the lake is full of microorganisms, which might be what is producing that colour. Probably good that you didn't taste test it. It looks like you produced red copper (I) oxide in that first test. It even looks a little metallic on the video.
WOW. soooo many "catch ya next times" really nice video , two thumbs up,. thank you for sharing your experiments and results, and not editing the failures out. thank you tom
Your first attempt that worked well gave blurry lines compared to the sharp lines of the nice olla you were showing next to it where you used clay as a binder, at least that's how it seems on the video. If salt makes the design more blurry this should be detectable on the archaeological pots in the museum and you could find out if they were using it at all.
I think part of the problem was my painting was messy because it was a test pot. The lines are certainly as crisp as many ancient pots. I will be making a well painted pot next to show what can be done. (hopefully) Thanks for the feedback.
Maybe it was the firing I read something once start any of oxy fire then reduce then cool oxy maybe polish the slip on bisque dont think letting it sit long in mix changes I was under the impression let the slip sit long?deflock that glaze?
Salt melts and form a glaze at about 2000 degrees f on the pots, so the paint that you made might need to be fired at a higher temperature so it will melt.
Maybe, I have no experience with double firing. And the point of my experiments is to see if this could have been available to the prehistoric people of this region. Traditionally pottery firings in North America are always single firings.
@@AncientPottery do we know for certain that they were single fired? A lot of people think Prehistoric People where thick and not as knowledgeable as we are today, which isn’t true, they may not of had the level of technology we have today, but they were fairly cleaver. After all our technological level came from their understanding of how things worked. So that’s why I asked could they have double fired? Also could anything be added to the fire (particular wood from the area etc or minerals) so the fire burns hotter (to help make the metals melt more even). I know in glass making, there is a plant which when burnt evenly, the soot makes a chemical which helps in making glass. So I wondered if there are other things which may help the process with the firing?
@@AncientPottery oh okay, that’s valuable information so anyone wanting to make authentic potty from that time period, it’s important to follow the ways they fired etc. this is one of the reasons I like and follow your channel.
Odd question...but I had mentioned finding some beauty clay bluffs with mixed green shale / slate...I was reading about the green shale, and I am curious if you have ever tried grinding something like that down to powder (it's already pretty soft...can pull small pieces to crumbs by hand only), adding some sand, and rehydrating back into clay? I have no clue, obviously, but would like to try it....just thought I'd check with someone knowledgeable before I waste my time! It's just such a perfect blue / green color that I'm drawn to...and logically, I can't see why it wouldn't work, but I'm probably overlooking something that's obvious to you. Also...another random comment...you've got some cool shirts!
Yes I have. Sometimes you can turn shale back into clay by grinding and sometimes you can't, it's all rather mysterious. I would try it on a small amount and see how it does.
I think with the right fluxes you could make it work. But the primitive peoples wouldn't have had the ability to produce them. We have modern comercial glazed that can work at the temps you hit. But only barely
As I watch this I’m taken back to my gma. She made sure I knew how to make lye. I think that’s the problem with your pot ash. Take a bucket and place about 3/4 full of ash (a lot not a little bit like you were doing). Fill the bucket with water. Let that sit undisturbed for three days. Each day skim off the top and discard. On the fourth day you’ll have lye which is the same as baking soda but made from pot ash. We would then use it to make different types of food. Pot ash has to have a lot of ash and it has to have time to leach out of the ash. It can’t be rushed. My aunties sometimes cheat and buy liquid lye which quite frankly doesn’t work the same. You can use mesquite and sage.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 86 | คู่เอก "คมเพชร vs ชาติพยัคฆ์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/m3q_dRYDuU8/mqdefault.jpg)
Some things I'd try: I think your salt is too dilute still, even though the solution is saturated. I bet you want a literal paste of solid salt. Remember that you need a significant amount of flux relative to the thing you're trying to dissolve in the flux, so it's beneficial to have lots and lots of flux volume. Take pottery glazes for example: the total fluxing ingredients are often 50% of the glaze itself. Another thing to note is that table salt melts a little close to the 800c you're firing at. Consider doing a eutectic mix that melts at around 700c? Furthermore, salt is known to be volatile when molten, so you might be losing a significant amount of it when it does evaporate. Perhaps avoid chlorides/halides and favor things like carbonates /alkali oxides. To this end I'm thinking some non-salty soda ash (the alkaline kind made from wood ash) is more beneficial to you. Also consider the role the clay plays. There might be some interaction between your flux and clay minerals that combines to make a sort of permanent glaze which acts as the binder for your pigment (because the salt alone is water soluble and would not be a fast binder)
This filled in all the gaps, you are exactly right!
Good info, thanks! I am preparing my next experiment right now so really appreciate your knowledge.
Yes , I agree , all very good points. I am still experimenting with natural playa salts , or salty clays near Mimbres people and finding a natural salty clay with suitable firing range AND low solubility has still been my biggest challenge. IF in fact sodium’s are key ingredient, which after three years of research and testing I still feel sodium is playing some role. Be it natural occurrence or deliberate additive. Cheers all!
A flux plus 10% clay makes a glaze. So a little clay to your mix may well do the trick.
Agreed; as the end of the video also shows you need a good quantity of flux; so crystalline ground to a paste is probably best. As you say by playing with mixtures of salts you can drastically lower the melting point. Pure chlorides might be hard to melt but mixtures of sodium-potassium-magnesium-calcium chlorides can have very low melting points indeed. Just by mixing sodium and potassium you can get under 500C. You can get such a mixture liquid on a stovetop; I did once, and it turned into a giant mess; since it straight up dissolved my clay crucible. I think thats mainly the molten calcium chloride thats just an insane mineral-dissolver / etcher. Worth experimenting with those; though where to source these ingredients in the wild isnt super obvious I suppose. I guess you can harvest caCl by boiling down snow melt after the deicing truck has passed by :P
That was a heroic quest, Andy! And despite the frustration and repeated disappointment, it turned out to be one of your best videos ever! I can't wait to try it at home.
Glad you liked it. It is fun to experiment and share my failures but I sometimes question whether people will find it entertaining. So thanks for the feedback.
@@AncientPottery it's definitely entertaining. Also allows us beginners to gauge how far from the mark or even how close we're getting in comparison. Thanks
This is super interesting and I totally understand the frustration and disappointment of trial and error.
As ceramics major in art school this is so fascinating to me; you're essentially making oxide wash (which is just 50/50 oxide and gerstely borate). Its just so cool to me that youre such a great potter and youve gone about it in such a different way!
Thanks, there are potentially a million ways of doing everything but we are all taught one way. Just trying to keep it natural.
Just discovered this channel. So cool to see a person who is passionate about their hobby/craft and who is willing to share the information in such a positive way.
I loved following your quest for knowledge. It’s equally important to find what doesn’t work as it is to find what does. Thankyou for another such video. Your enthusiasm is contagious.
Thanks glad you enjoyed it
This might be one of your best videos. Thank you oh so much for not ending it early. I'm sure your on the right path. I personally think the fluxes would have been processed to dry. Either for ease of storage or ease of trade and transport
I agree with you, dry is the standard way that mineral paint is mixed. More experiments coming up.
great video Andy, love seeing the failures and successes all together. i got excited for the salt bush!
I suppose you have salt brush in your area too. Thanks!
Great video. Yesterday I made a paint of ground dry ingredients- borax, galena, manganese dioxide, copper carbonate, clay. Then added water. The result was excellent glaze. Fluxes must be important.
That's great Wes. I am writing an email to Mary Ownby to get her thoughts on all this. I think there are many mysteries in ancient Southwest pottery that could be answered by fluxes.
Failure makes a good learning opportunity. Love these investigations!
Thanks, making a little progress each time.
Great video! Try calcining the ash from the burnt salt brush to get a cleaner product. You could bake the ash in a container up to a few hundred degrees to get the carbon/impurities to burn off. Calcining the other brines might help too by converting them from chlorides to oxides or something. Thanks Andy! Very informative as always
Good idea, thanks. This had crossed my mind as roasting my galena had helped me achieve lead glaze paint too.
@@AncientPottery Just yesterday I watched a show on how they make salt from river reeds in Africa. It shows the steps to getting pure salt. th-cam.com/video/PNjynDybHxE/w-d-xo.html It’s at 28:30
Kaaplaa! Your insatiable curiosity is adding much to our body of knowledge. Glad you are willing to do so much hard work to figure it out.
This is the fun part, thanks. Your grasp of Klingon is impressive. There will be a cask of blood wine coming to you in the mail.
@@AncientPottery We will sing a bit of Aktuh and Melota and toast to your success with it
I loved this video. The logical next step in the scientific investigation from Jeff Coopers research information at the kiln conference.
Thanks a lot glad you liked it.
Just a note, I am still on the quest and making interesting findings still related to local materials , and cultural ways of life and how all these things could have contributed to fantastic pottery. I recently was able to gather a material in the area that is showing some real promise! Firing range is key. And I still find sodium’s key.
Watched this with my morning coffee. Great start to the day. Thanks Wes.
Hey now Barbara! I appreciate that you enjoyed the video but I’m not Wes.
I am not a potter (yet) but am a chemist, and a lot of the comments noting a need for more concentrated salt make chemical sense. I think you are on the right track with materials selection; but might need a more complex mixture. When you mentioned that that clay "contaminate" in the playa salt was was so loathe to settle out it made me think that this may be a key ingredient to make things work. Difficulty settling means small particle size, which means a lot of surface area and direct contact with the salt. If you take this and grind it like you do clay, then add pigment and apply as a paste you might have an interesting test indead! Mixing the playa salt and the ash together would be a worthy test as well! I love what you are doing with the channel and look forward to watching your videos, thanks so much!
Thanks for the info, I am adding this to ideas for future experiments.
A spectacular ending, it was clear that the more the salts dissolved, the less it worked, but only you who have the perseverance to try again and again and again, even without us watching. Thank you!
Using salt as a flux is so cool! I know this video is from a while ago but I find that adding vinegar to the clay slurry helps it settle out. Without the vinegar it will sit for days and never settle.
I'm in love with your videos and admire your drive to get it right ! I also love your overall outfit in the 3rd ending ! It make me smile and I thought I would share the smile with you !
Thanks
Oh my !!!!! Yay outside foraging for good things!!!
you might also want to try using sodium silicate(water glass) and Gerstley Borate which are found in nature as well, those are strong fluxes we use in pottery often. A student of mine doing her final project on paper clay, experimented adding 5-10% paper pulp into glazes, and seemed to lower the melting point of the glazes as well. So maybe worth a try to add moist pulp from the native dessert plants/ wood saw dust into your oxides and see if that can work as flux as well. Keep doing these experiments, they are interesting!
I have also heard/read somewhere that the reduction atmosphere during firing will lower the melting point of iron oxide.
This video answers every question I have been asking!
Thanks, I'm glad to hear it
I agree its diluted when you mixed the salt
Good luck to future experiments
I think u might need to heat to a sweet spot between the melting point and the boiling point of the salt for the salt glaze not to boil off maybe. The ending (no spoilers) made a lot of sense too.
Thanks for the tip, more experiments to come.
Andy, I just love your pursuit of experimenting on behalf of all your viewers. I am new to all of this clay finding and out door firing, but I am absolutely fascinated with your videos, and hope to meet you one day and come to one of your workshops.
Awesome, glad you are enjoying my videos. Thanks
Great video. I really enjoyed watching you work through the various flux trials. So informative and fascinating.
Thanks, glad you liked it
Salt and iron both are found in blood.. wonder how that might work. Also, I love that colorful patchwork shirt towards the end. Keep being awesome
I think using blood as an organic paint would be a very interedting experiment. I think it would work and be readily available.
I will leave that experiment for others to do.
Blood was used for ancient paints
excellent effort really enjoy your videos and ty for the time you put in to them.
Thank you from Italy
Great work Andy, I have loads of salts in my clays. None of the surfaces ever glaze. I like the idea but I think salts fume and can turn white to gray, also with those fine lines the Mimbres painted the lines may get muted together. I’ve heard the Mata Ortiz guys talk a cobalt I think it was made a super black. But it would flake off. I dug a red clay one time and used it as a painting and it turned pitch black but flaked off. It was to pure. 😀
Hey Tony, I think you misunderstand my goals here. I am not trying to make black paint or glaze. I am just trying to see if I can use salt to make minerals stick to the pots. And I have made it work, I am using a LOT more salt than you have in your salty clays, something like 50% salt is being added to the ground minerals. I am not done experimenting so there is still much I don't understand. I have had some of that fuming but not in all or every case, so I also want to understand why it happens in some cases but not every time. Thanks for the insight.
Great experiment! I was trying to figure out why your first try had sputtering and vapor deposition, then it all seemed to make sense when you said the salt granules on that bowel weren't fully dissolved. Although this result lacks the crispness of lines we see in ancient pottery, it is still very intriguing.
(1) What do you think of brining the slip as well? It might give more consistent results than trying to keep salt grains in the paint. Could also dust the slip with salt while it is still wet, might affect the surface texture I suppose, finer might be better.
(2) What if you used something other than water in the paint? Mineral oil, animal fat, etc., something which salt isn't so readily soluble in.
(3) I made a fair bit of black powder in my youth and one thing which really affected the result was to dry mill the ingredients together prior to wetting and granulating. So, maybe try dry milling the salt and pigments together to bring the molecules into close contact then wet with an already saturated brine. I used a ball mill for the GP, sufficiently milling by hand would probably involve more than running the mix through a corn grinder a couple of times - I'd say it would be like adding salt to whatever dry process you'd use to reduce pigment particle size from good enough to extremely smooth (fine).
Not sure about brining the slip but Jeff Cooper has done some experiments with that so he may have some feedback. I am definitely not trying for an all over glaze. Maybe oil might be worth a try. Traditionally organic binder is added, and although it is water soluble, it could help to hold the salts in place. I like the dry milking idea, that is actually what I did to get that paint that went full glaze on key first test bowl, so definitely more of that. Thanks a lot for the good ideas and feedback.
Great effort......got to watch this again.....so many possibilities......need some luck.
Thanks, I wish I had some luck to give you but I'm fresh out
I admire your tenacity! Edison said " I found 2000 ways to NOT make a light bulb". Or something close to that. Michael
Yes, so good, you have to keep trying until you get it right. I have another test pot about ready to fire right now.
Loved this video, Andy.
Glad you enjoyed it
Your perseverance is inspiring. I actually love your "test" design bowl. The simple grouping of lines, each with its own personality and history, right?
Off topic, but I recall hearing that (Navajo?) potters would put dry crushed clay into baskets, and toss the contents repeatedly. The finer clay particles would become airborne and be collected on sheets (skins?) on the ground.
After struggling with both wet and dry processing, I'd like to try this....see how it goes. Have you heard of this method?
Yes, this process is called winnowing and it is one of the best primitive methods of screening any material. Glad you liked my bowl, sometimes the simplest designs are the best IMO.
Great video and awesome experiments! Looks promising, can't wait to see future videos on this topic! I need to play around with that salt stuff some. That new background is awesome btw!
Thanks, I hope you give it a try, I am about ready to use it on an actual pot (not and experiment). And thanks on the background too, I am not quite done with it yet.
Revisiting this video. And still experimenting, I’m finding iron oxide based paint must reduce at the same time as the salt melts to capture the reduction and also prevent iron crystals to form in the cooling creating an opportunity for oxygen to react again. And some clay iron paints reduce at very different temps. Cheers !
You are quite the chemist. Paul Thornburg also told me that iron was an important ingredient in glaze paint but I have't tried it yet
Amazing video thank you I learned so so so much.
Thanks
Greatly appreciate and admire you keeping on going to try to make it work !
Thank you, that is exactly how I got where I am with pottery.
Just found your videos, love it. I really like your rainbow shirt, i need to find one for myself!
Thanks
That's absolutely awesome. Not at all what I was expecting - but in a good way. Keep up the great work.👍👍
Now I'll have to try it out.😁
Great, glad you liked it and looking forward to hearing about you and others experiments on this idea.
I love your determination. Great video
Thank you!
Bravo on your effort!! You'll crack it soon eough
Hope so!
Awesome stuff thanks for sharing
You bet
Huzzah for experimental archeology!
We tried the juniper ashes, and I used charred ashy stuff that looked like yours, the results were exact. I am going to try burning a lot more wood and getting a lot cleaner ashes. There is a minoan potter on you tube that uses ash only with his iron oxide, no other fixative. I am sure we may be on to something, and I am ready to be done with these salt questions,.. I want answers and we will let you know our results as well. The copper carbonate we used fumed all of our pots because an air vent was sealed by a bowl. The copper fumes stayed inside the bucket that we fire in and the fume stayed trapped in with the pottery the entire firing. This produced the same fume that your copper did.. Great video, Sir!
Thanks for the info, looking forward to hearing what you find out. Tori Hoopes is also working on this right now so a lot of us are working on it we should figure something out soon.
@@AncientPottery Can we get the link to the video of the Minoan potter? Ash and iron oxide is something I'm working on and it would be interesting to see how it's mixed, applied and fired. Thanks!
@@torihoopes th-cam.com/video/sabFlgiiB9s/w-d-xo.html
@@torihoopes I found that malachite powder glazes slightly with only an organic binder and 10% clay, but at about 1000 Celsius, and I found that some types of feldspar has a lower melting temperature than copper, so I am working on getting the right feldspar. I am willing to go as far as this... LOL! We are going to mix the feldspar and ashes with iron, and then we are going to mix feldspar and ashes with copper, and then, if no glaze this time, I am moving on and letting you all figure it out. 🤞
Excellent series of experiments! Looks like something I would have pursued. 😁
If I can ever so slightly involve a touch of chemistry, what you really need to inspect is how your materials are bonding with your clay, by which I mean what is being exchanged and removed molecularly between the pigments and the flux. Salts are excellent binders to ceramic media of which properties greatly change depending on the combustion environment. They do best with a reduced oxygen atmosphere to neutral, though it's difficult at best to monitor in a wood-fired kiln in open atmosphere. Another common salt to try would be magnesium sulfate, better known as epsom salt. In combination with alumina and phosphoric acid, it was a precursor to firebricks in the early days of the industrial era.
Your manganese oxide is considered a catalyst (or flux with pottery) at accelerating the combustion of other materials it is mixed with, as are copper sulphates; you can find the latter primarily as root killer in crystalized form at a hardware/home improvement place or a large bag online through amazon and such. I would probably try a stack of small tiles in your kiln application of choice just to try as many combinations as possible in one go.
I got quite frustrated with my experimentation. Clearly I am not a research analyst etc. but this has renewed my interest and given me more ideas for my experimentation. I am just trying to get Manganese Dioxide to work. all failure so far but more to follow.
Awesome video! super helpful
Glad it was helpful!
Nice video and channel. Amazing hobby. You have a real talent with this. New follower here. Crow✌️
Thanks and welcome.
awesome job
Thanks
Seeing all these tests, all these failures gives me great admiration for the ancient potters and their trials and tribulations.
You may be exasperated from all or these experiments but it really has opened my eyes to the greatness of the ancient potters.
Also now we know why the ancient archeological sites have so much broken pot shards underfoot: failed firings. If only we could hear all of the ancient cuss words that went along with those broken pots!
😂 Pete
Really interesting. You'd think that once the water in the paint had evaporated, that brine would be back to concentrated pure salt, so perhaps it's just a matter of quantity? there's a lot more salt involved when you use the crystallised form?
I don't know anything about pottery or glazes, but I'd be very curious to see what happened if you used as high a percentage of salt you could, and also whether painting a salt paste/crust over the top of the paint did anything.
Yeah, that has crossed my mind. I'm not sure but I suspect that there might be more salt in the paint if I add it dry.
Wow chemistry 101
Thanks you so much
try painting the stripes on then putting a strong brine wash on top of the paints to seal them in
Thanks for the idea, I think that's what Jeff Cooper was doing. th-cam.com/video/70CPfsCI7ho/w-d-xo.html
I SO love your approach to finding out how things work!!! I think someone else said this....and I'm so ignorant of all this I hesitate to say anything. But....if one put a brine solution in a clay pot... wouldn't the water evaporate and go through the pot...but leave the salt behind on the inside of the pot? Then one could add that salt to the paints. 🤷♀️
Love the demonstration of trial and error.
Generally if there is an abundance of salt in the clay body, it will works its way to the surface as the pot dries. The salts being water soluble will travel with the water as it dries out of the pot. This can have some benefits but more often than not it actually becomes a hindrance to the potter and their results.
Good idea but salts destroy pottery. So the salt would not only be deposited inside the pot but also inside the very walls of the pot where they would recrystallize and cause it to break and spall. I think the metal pot is better because I don't have to damage a pot.
Great video, thank you for your persistence! Could it be that there are other trace elements in the ash you gathered that are reacting with the salt/oxygen? Perhaps more processing is needed to extract just the flux you're intending, though I don't have an idea of what type of processing may have traditionally been done. Additionally, you said your control was "table salt", which is not NaCl alone, but contains Iodine and possibly anti-clumping agents. I realize you might be using "table salt" to refer to non-iodized, store-bought salt, but that still may contain anti-caking agents. Perhaps that is a variable as well? Something like a sea salt or kosher salt would be closer to pure NaCl or NaCl with other trace elements similar to what you're likely getting from your salt-ash solution. Best of luck in your future experimentations!
Yes, I want to try the salt brush ash again. And yeah the table salt has iodine (no anti clumping ingredients that are listed in the ingredients list) it was a good control because I had already shown that it worked to make the paint stick.
Groov'n to the music, man.
Thanks
Perhaps some type of silicates were involved in these paint mixtures back then?
Well sure, clay is full of silica so if nothing else it could use the silica on the surface of the pot, but some paint recipes include a little clay too.
The master!!
What would happen if you added salt to your white slip so that it would melt in similar way? Think it would seal the porous surface to become more 'food safe' ? That could be content for another video of experimental archaeology. Successful or failure, I think would be good to watch.
Yes, I think there might be possibilities with an all over, low fire glaze with this material. Although that is not my intention. Thanks
Good man 👍
Admiring how you question and pursue answers with great determination, I wanted to ask a question which struck me during this video regarding the use of "table salt"... common table salt usually has additives to keep it from clumping; it's not pure sodium chloride such as pickling salt. Although those additives constitute only about 3% of the product, it can make a big difference when working in the kitchen... could it also make a difference with applications for firing pottery?
Yeah maybe, I didn't think too much about it. Of course I also used natural salt here so...
Yhat clay would be great too it makes me wonder how much better that clay would work with and the end look
That's great
Hey Andy, very interesting video, definitely needs a follow up. Also i have a question: what would be the easiest method to make a pot, waterproof enough to allow brine pickling in a primitive setting? is it only achievable in stoneware temps? your video made me wonder if it can be done with a fluxed slip at low temps.
I think starch, milk or oil sealing would work.. Your biggest issue would be you might possibly need to top up your brined if it starts to become to low. There shouldnt be much loss from a fell sealed pot, yet if there is some loss and you replenish then you should be ok
I have had this question before and I'm just not sure. Probably the best primitive sealants are milk and oil, neither are 100%, so you will lose some moisture.
try concentrated ammonium acetate as an additive to all kinds of metal oxide based colors, it even dissolves lead oxides. was used to clean old lead relics. it might improve the melting into the ceramic of all kinds of metal pigment based colors.
Very cool Andy! Loved the video and your test approach. Been so darn windy here and I’m bogged down with production wheel pottery orders I have NO TIME for primitive pots 😢 back at soon I hope.
It's great to have orders though. You have inspired a few potters, I know of several that are doing experiments now.
@@AncientPottery for what’s it’s worth, I have had some time with sherds and a low power microscope. It looks as though some pots where either painted over twice before firing or possibly repainted and fired again. Some lines look layered . The “wicking” of the sodium’s you mentioned is an issue for me as well, but what if repainted with a less absorbent surface? This stuff drives me nuts but I love it !
Great video, and thank you for being so persistent! Just thinking here... I think it makes sense that salt in solution would not melt so easily, becausebit instill chemically bound to other substances that have a higher melt point. I wonder if you can make crystalline salt from the playa and the saltbrush?
Good points, thanks for sharing your thoughts, I am planning more experiments right now. My find Tori said she was able too get saltbush ash to crystallize so I need to try that again.
Is the lead in the lead+copper mixture dangerous?
Have you ever tried using uric acid (urine) on pots? Seems to me that would be the most readily available thing (in primitive terms). Maybe boiled down (outside of course) till concentrated.
Possibly mixed with wood ash? Would make for an interesting video at least.
Hmm, I guess that would be another approach to this, thanks for the suggestion.
Maybe wet brush then sprinkle on like sparkles.
I would add other types of natural flux like bone(calcium) and Feldspar, sulfur. Also mix in seaweed ash, water plants have different minerals composition.
Try it and see how it works.
@@AncientPottery sodium boils around 880c, salt helps flux but it gassefies instead of staying in glass form. Calcium stays until 1400c but it will need help of the salt in outdoor firing. I would help hash it out but i'm busy with my kiln, love your videos!
Crystallized salt.
You need a fritware clay body to make a glaze in low temperature or you can make an Egyptian paste for a starter
Can you cover the whole pot in salt as a glaze ?
I’m gonna do it in the spring
Salt glaze is a think. Some of our oldest pickling crocks are salt glazed. Often recognised by their crackled appearance. But its generally achieved via a kiln and higher temps than what Andy archives in his surface firings.
I think this is the logical extension of this line of experiments, low temp salt glazed pottery.
Add White vinegar to the water it will help separate the water on top will go clear faster
I thought the point of a flux was to enable melting of some components of the clay at lower temperatures, something like forming a eutectic mixture with the silica grains. Maybe it just has no effect on the metal oxides at all?
Fluxes are used in soldering to help the metal melt better so unfortunately I want to think its not the metal content.
That being said it might not be the right flux for the metal
A flux can be used to melt all kinds of things. In this case I am not wanting to achieve glaze, although I have shown that it can be done, but I am just wanting to make the mineral (iron, copper or manganese) sinter
I wonder if the salt from pyramid lake nv will work. Its like an alkaline lake
I wouldn't be surprised.
@@AncientPottery next time im out there ill get some
OMG I think i just thought up a fun and exciting challenge for you Andy and your followers...
I have watched I think every one of your youtube videos. many more often then once. The more i practice and follow your guidence the better my hand building skills have developed. One thing I find most noticeable is how the brain remembers. Like the thickness of the pot walls and such.
So back to the challenge
Would you consider...
Building a pot or bowl blindfolded?
I'm very curious how that would go. You do very impressive work that has taken you 30+ years to master and your videos make that apparent to those who are trying to follow along with you.
So please would you try my challenge? Nothing big or painted or decorated unless you wanted to. Maybe like your "One Coil Challenge" but blindfolded?
I dont think i could do it. But could you?
Not sure, maybe. It might be fun to try or it might be very frustrating.
Just a thought- did you try using NON iodized salt?
If you want cleaner ash, you need to burn it at a higher temperature for longer.
The salt crust from the lake is full of microorganisms, which might be what is producing that colour. Probably good that you didn't taste test it.
It looks like you produced red copper (I) oxide in that first test. It even looks a little metallic on the video.
Thanks for the info Jenn. I am anxious to try the salt brush ash again so this will help.
WOW. soooo many "catch ya next times" really nice video , two thumbs up,. thank you for sharing your experiments and results, and not editing the failures out.
thank you
tom
Thanks, glad you appreciated my failures.
Your first attempt that worked well gave blurry lines compared to the sharp lines of the nice olla you were showing next to it where you used clay as a binder, at least that's how it seems on the video. If salt makes the design more blurry this should be detectable on the archaeological pots in the museum and you could find out if they were using it at all.
I think part of the problem was my painting was messy because it was a test pot. The lines are certainly as crisp as many ancient pots. I will be making a well painted pot next to show what can be done. (hopefully) Thanks for the feedback.
👍
Maybe it was the firing I read something once start any of oxy fire then reduce then cool oxy maybe polish the slip on bisque dont think letting it sit long in mix changes I was under the impression let the slip sit long?deflock that glaze?
Salt melts and form a glaze at about 2000 degrees f on the pots, so the paint that you made might need to be fired at a higher temperature so it will melt.
I wonder how will be the result if use Himalayan pink salt.
Worth a try
The copper in the paint had a nice "airbrush" effect after firing. Not an authentic replication but still pretty tho
I'm sure the ancients got that occasionally, copper is weird in reduction.
😎 👍🏼
Maybe I’m just too new to pottery, or just dumb…what is the liquid you are using?
Would firing it more than once? Or getting it hotter to help melt the metals?
Maybe, I have no experience with double firing. And the point of my experiments is to see if this could have been available to the prehistoric people of this region. Traditionally pottery firings in North America are always single firings.
@@AncientPottery do we know for certain that they were single fired? A lot of people think Prehistoric People where thick and not as knowledgeable as we are today, which isn’t true, they may not of had the level of technology we have today, but they were fairly cleaver. After all our technological level came from their understanding of how things worked.
So that’s why I asked could they have double fired? Also could anything be added to the fire (particular wood from the area etc or minerals) so the fire burns hotter (to help make the metals melt more even). I know in glass making, there is a plant which when burnt evenly, the soot makes a chemical which helps in making glass. So I wondered if there are other things which may help the process with the firing?
@@robmarshallofficial I’m not basing that on any presumptions about ancient people. But on historic Native American traditions.
@@AncientPottery oh okay, that’s valuable information so anyone wanting to make authentic potty from that time period, it’s important to follow the ways they fired etc. this is one of the reasons I like and follow your channel.
Interesting that they call the place a playa (Spanish for beach), instead of a salt flat.
Horrible bowl? Even your experiments are works of art. I think it's cool - can I have it?
You sure can if you can pay postage
@@AncientPottery Wow, THANK YOU! Of course I'll pay postage. Awesome, an Andy Ward original :)
Odd question...but I had mentioned finding some beauty clay bluffs with mixed green shale / slate...I was reading about the green shale, and I am curious if you have ever tried grinding something like that down to powder (it's already pretty soft...can pull small pieces to crumbs by hand only), adding some sand, and rehydrating back into clay? I have no clue, obviously, but would like to try it....just thought I'd check with someone knowledgeable before I waste my time! It's just such a perfect blue / green color that I'm drawn to...and logically, I can't see why it wouldn't work, but I'm probably overlooking something that's obvious to you. Also...another random comment...you've got some cool shirts!
Yes I have. Sometimes you can turn shale back into clay by grinding and sometimes you can't, it's all rather mysterious. I would try it on a small amount and see how it does.
@@AncientPottery I would like to add that after firing it probably won't be the same color as it is raw.
i wonder if you could use quartz crystal to have it melt into a glassy coating on the pot
I’m pretty sure I am not getting anywhere near hot enough to melt quartz. Quartz is a common ingredient in my temper.
I think with the right fluxes you could make it work. But the primitive peoples wouldn't have had the ability to produce them. We have modern comercial glazed that can work at the temps you hit. But only barely
I am thinking you had uneven heating in that firing(?)
Ironoxide becomes a very strong flux in reduction firing.
Yeah, in a kiln. But the way I fire you will never reach the temperatures you are implying
As I watch this I’m taken back to my gma. She made sure I knew how to make lye. I think that’s the problem with your pot ash. Take a bucket and place about 3/4 full of ash (a lot not a little bit like you were doing). Fill the bucket with water. Let that sit undisturbed for three days. Each day skim off the top and discard. On the fourth day you’ll have lye which is the same as baking soda but made from pot ash. We would then use it to make different types of food. Pot ash has to have a lot of ash and it has to have time to leach out of the ash. It can’t be rushed. My aunties sometimes cheat and buy liquid lye which quite frankly doesn’t work the same. You can use mesquite and sage.
Thanks for the info. I remember reading about lye making in the Foxfire books when I was in high school
Maybe vinegar might help the clay settle out of the salty lake bed sediment. Probably not but just sayin
It crossed my mind but then I wondered if vinegar could ruin my alkali flux by neutralizing the alkali
A flux plus 10% clay makes a glaze. So you do need to add a little clay to your mix.
And the correct temperature, that is what was lacking here