Making Ceramic Test Tiles

The easiest way to make up your test glazes is to make a series of different ceramic tiles in the different types of clay you ll be working with.

Making ceramic test tiles.

Once bisqued these dishes can hold any type of crushed material for your next firing. Put a hole somewhere to hang your tiles on a wall board or to hang off the handle of the bucket. Chances are you ll find one that makes sense with what you are making. For this test tile we are using a 15 diameter bat.

Spread clay to the edge of the bat and then begin to open. And to improve your results it helps to have test tiles that mimic the kind of work you make. General ideas regardless of the shape. Put some type of word.

The clay will brought to the edge of this in the form of a bottomless cylinder. To make simple melt test tiles i use this easy technique. How to test tweak and perfect your glazes john britt shows several different ways to make test tiles. It is generally a good idea to add texture to part of your test piece so you can see how the glaze will respond.

For any work on the wheel centering clay is the first step. Using a piece of high density foam and a 4x4cm piece of wood quickly press each square into the foam creating a shallow dish. After centering spread the clay out flat similar to a plate.