Glaze Formulas

Glaze Formulas

Wachovia (N.C.)--History.

Pottery.

Glazing (Ceramics)

Moravians.

Translation of a collection of recipes for glazes used by the Moravian potters in Wachovia. Five typed pages with some hand written notes on first page. Each page has three holes punched on left margin from storage in a three ring binder.

Eisenberg, Carl.

Dr. W. Schwaze, translator.

October 20, 1793

Text

PDF

English (translation)

SSMC 5-48 001

MC2-Stanley South Manuscript Collection-Research Notes.

Stanley South Manuscript Collection Box - Folder 5-48.

Rights held by Historic Bethabara Park, Inc. Use and reproduction restrictions apply. Contact Historic Bethabara Park Archives.

Historic Bethabara Park, Inc.

(trans. By Dr. Schwarze) [hand written]
Reel A-31 SALEM [Located Box R53, in folder entitled “Various [Recipes” in Moravian Archives

“A Collection of Faience-China Glazing Formulas;
as also, All Sorts of Painter’s Colors and How
Such Are to be Treated. Salem, 20 October 1793”


“A Collection of Carl Eisenber’s Faience-Glazing
Formulas, together with the Various Painters’
Colors.”

No. 1. Ramberville Glazing without Mastigut.
Take 100 lbs lead, 50 lbs English tin and calcine these together. This together, after it has been fired, is called tin ashes.
Now take 100 lbs tin ashes, 100 lbs white sand, 50 lbs potash, 10 lbs salt. This is to be melted together in the lower vault of the kiln, but first make a dam of wet white sand. Mastigut can also be employed for this.
(This glazing does not burn itself quite white and is recommended only as an emergency glazing)

No. 2. A Formula with Mastigut.
Take 53 lbs lead, 20 lbs tin; this burnt to ashes.
For Mastigut, take 122 lbs white sand and 40 lbs soda. These two ingredients are moistened and well mixed and put into the lowest vault of the kiln and burnt. It is now called Mastigut.
Now pound it fine in mortar and then mix the following: 71 ½ lbs of tin ashes, 82 ½ lbs of mastigut, 74 ½ lbs kitchen salt. This put together into the sand and fired in the lowest vault of the kiln. Then it is pounded into the mortar and ground fine in the mill.

No. 3. Another.
18 lbs tin, 54 lbs lead, mastigut, 97 lbs sand, 33 lbs soda.
The Glazing: 74 lbs tin ashes, 80 lbs mastigut, 24 lbs salt.

No. 4. 53 lbs lead, 20 lbs tin, mastigut, 122lbs white sand, 40 lbs soda.
The Glazing: 71 ½ lbs tin ashes, 82 ½ lbs mastigut, 74 ½ lbs salt.

No. 5. 34 lbs lead, 10 lbs tin, mastigut, 99 lbs sand, 33 lbs soda.
The Glazing: 74 lbs tin ashes, 132 lbs mastigut, 24 lbs salt.

No. 6. From Abraham Goll in Christiansfeld [Moravian settlement in Germany.]
Take 12 lbs of lead and melt it, when melted pour it into clean well water

Page 2 Glazing Formulas and Colors

(Abraham Goll’s Forumula, cont’d)

Then take 4 bls of very fine English tin, and proceed as above, but keep each separate.
Now take 3 pounds of the lead – which now looks like shot – and put it into your smelting oven which must be so arranged that the flame goes all the way over the lead.
As soon as the lead is reduced to ashes, add 1 lb of tin and stir constantly, until no bright, glowing spot is visible. This is not finished. Proceed with the other portions of lead and tin until all is completed.
Then take of above tin ashes 12 lbs. of flint, calcined very fine 7 lbs, of white English earth 4 ½ lbs, carbonate of soda, 2 ½ lbs, potash, 1 lb, white glass, ½ lb.
These materials, pounded very fine, each separately, put thu’ a sieve and well mixed together are not placed in a receptacle of white sand, large enough to contain the mass, and put on the rack at the fire-box. The material may lie a hand-breadth thick. It must remain in the oven until the dishes are taken out.
It will now have melted into a cake which is now pounded fine, and the pounding repeated 2 or 3 times. (This must be done on a hard stone: a soft stone wears down and is harmful to the glazing.
Now the white glazing material is complete. It will show up nicer on dishes where the clay has burned white then on red. The glazing must be put on the thickness of the back of a knife. Pieces to be glazed are first dipped in water; otherwise bubles will show when the dishesare take out of the kiln.
I have used this glazing over 20 years and tried it out many ways.


Front Professor Germelin’s Report on Glass (China) Decoration

[Germelin was in Goettingen, Germany]

The delicate white enamel which one can use as a base for most colors.
Take 2 parts Borax, calcined, 1 part saltpetre, 4 parts flint pebbles, calcined, 8 parts tin, 32 parts lead. The lead and tin burned to ashes in an iron pan, then mingled with the others and melted.
(Makes a nice yellow glazing)

Sea Green.
12 lbs lead ashes with tin (as above), 2 ½ lbs carbonate of soda, 1 lb potash, 7 lbs white sand, 1 ½ lbs salt, 3 ¼ lbs copper ashes, 4 ½ lbs pipe earth, 1 ½ lbs white enamel (above), 1 lb litharge of silver.

Black Glazing.
10 measures litharge, 5 measures sand, 1 measure iron ore, 1 measure manganese, 1 ½ measures copper ashes, 1 measure white enamel (above), 1 ounce storax.
Page 3 Glazing Formulas and Colors

Blue Glazing .
6 lbs lead ashes, 4 lbs pebbles, 2 lbs white glass, 12 ounces caesium, 1 handful salt; these well melted.
or
½ lb caesium, 1 lb lead ashes, 2 lbs pebbles, 2lbs salt, 1 lb cream of tartar, ½ lb white glass

Blue Color For Painting.
1 lb Saxon cobalt, calcined well. Throw it into water until it becomes mellow. Repeat this 3 times. Stamp it in a mortar and sift it until very fine. Spread it on a piece of sheet iron or a pottery plate to allow the arsenic to evaporate out of it (being careful not to inhale any of the vapor because it is poisonous). To this now add ¾ lb of red oxide of lead and rub or grind it very fine, otherwise you can not paint very well with it. Stand out beautifully on white glazing.

Silver Blue.
1 ounce silver dissolved in nitric acid over a moderate fire, strike it back with a little copper. Rub 1 ounce of sal amooniac with some vinegar (pure) and add it to the silver water, stir well together, let stand until the sediment falls to the bottom and the vinegar stand clear over it. Pour off the vinegar and put the deposit into a glass jar which bury in horse manure over night. Dig it out in the morning and it will be a nice blue. Combine it with ½ to one ounce of flux and rub smooth for painting.

Vestment Blue.
Take of the best smalt and melt it in a crucible, rub it smooth and try it. If not flued enough, take ½ part flux and combine. This is also good for painting.

Yellow Color For Painting.
1 part Naples Yellow melted in a crucible. Let it cool well and then mix it with 3 parts flux and rub smooth.

Sulpher Or Lemon Yellow.
6 parts sulfer, 12 small measures of silver litharge, 3 little measures of Naples Yellow, 5 little measures of white sand. To be melted.

Yellow For The Large Fire.
1 lb tin ashes, 1 ½ lbs mastigut, ½ lb antimony, handful of salt.
or
10 ounces silver litharge, 6 ounces pebbles, 3 ½ ounces potash, 1 ½ ounces salt, 3 ounces antimony.

Black Color.
1 part iron fining-slag, 2 parts black glass, 1 part flux, rubbed smooth.

Black For the Melting Oven.
1 part iron fining-slag, 1 part flux, 1 part unmixed purple, a little silver blue, all rubbed together.

Page 4 Glazing Formulas And Colors

Glazing For Pipe Clay.
26 lbs red oxide of lead, 20 lbs white sand, 14 lbs cooking salt, 6 lbs white glass, 1 ½ lbs alum. This is melted in the large fire.

Red In The Large Fire.
1 lb ochre, 1 lb gold litharge, ½ lb white glass, ½ lb flint pebbles.

Red In the Melting Fire.
Hungarian Vitriol, when it has ceased to glow, washed 4 times and when it is dry mixed with 2 parts purple flux.

Violet.
Dry purple mixed with 3 parts flux.

To Color Brown on White.
1 lb, 12 ounces manganese, calcined 3 times, 2 lb, ¼ oz calcined flint pebbles, frit from pipe clay, 30 lbs good calcined potash, 40 lbs calcined white pebbles, 9 lbs white sand. This burned in the large fire.
2ndly. 15 lbs of the frit above, 9 lbs pebbles, 9 lbs chalk, 30 lbs white, oily earth.

How Purple Is Made.
Take a good Holland Ducat, hammer it quite thin, bend it together, again hammer it thin, repeat until the gold is as thin as possible. Cut it into small pieces and put them into a glass and pour 3 ounces of Aqua Regis over it, when over moderate heat the gold will dissolve. This is now called gold water. Put it into a glass and stopper well.
Take ½ ounce of fine silver and treat as above. After it is very thin, put it into a glass and pour 2 ounces of nitric acid over it. When it has dissolved, pour it into a quart glass. This is the silver water.
Now take 1 ounce fine English tin and dissolve it in 6 ounces of nitric acid (dissolving only ½ ounce of tin in 3 ounces of nitric acid at a time). Pour each portion into the silver water.
Now take 4 ounces of salt, [inserted: on a Ducat] put it into a beer glass and pour 3 fingers’-high rain water. Then filter this silver, tin and salt water thru’ filtering paper.
When this is done, put ½ ounce of very fine tin into this filtered water and let it stand over night. Next morning filter it again and pour it into a glass.
Making Purple.
Take a quart glass of rain water and put 3 little pieces of tin into the water. Take 20-3 drops of the silver-tin-salt water and let them drop into the rain water, stiring with a wooden rod. Then let 12 drops of the gold water fall into the quart glass: if it is not red enough for you, add several more drops of the gold water and stir. Now pour this into a dish and proceed with another quart of rain water as long as you have gold water and silver-tin-salt water left.
If the purple will not set, pour some fresh urine (but not female urine) into each dish. When the purple has set,

Page 5 Glazing Formulas And Colors

Pour this water off and pour well water upon it 2 or 3 times, until it no longer tastes after the former water. Filter it again thru’ filtering paper and put it on a scales and take as much pains as the purple weighs!
Note: The purple must be moist at all times: about the consistency of liver.
Afterward rub it fine with water and let it dry. It is then ready for use.

Flux For Purple.
8 ounces white Venetian glass, 4 ounces calcined borax. Melt this in a crucible, stamp it fine and rub it on a stone.
Then 12 ounces of Amelia glass (white) rubbed fine, mix with the glass and borax above, then take ¼ ounce of pebbles and 3 ounces of red oxide of lead, let it melt and rub smooth. Take of this flint-oxide flux 24 ounces and add it to the above glass of flux and mix it together. Then it is ready for the purple.