Terra Sigillata

My first attempt to make and use a batch of terra sigillata.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• brookfield
• pottery
• potter
• throwing
• making
• sig
• terra
• sig.
• burnishing

[monalisasmoustache]

Hello fron NC USA and thanks for your video. Re recipe, did you say cow dung? Very interesting process, I am a beginning potter, just bought my wheel, am a bit intimidated by all the health issues involved w/ this craft. I was surfing scraffito and t sig and thus landed on your doorstep, am very interested in learning older, safer, organic methods. BTW, would that be fresh or dried or ???? Thanks everso, Elizabeth

[brookfieldpottery]

@monalisasmoustache Sorry, not cow dung calgon! Water softener powder for the washing machine! I'm pleased you left feedback, you would have had a terrible time trying to use dung! As to health issues: clean up and mop regularly and wear a mask when handling powders (oxides, glaze etc.). Mark.

[monalisasmoustache]

@brookfieldpottery Hilarious! Between your charming British accent and the lowered pitch when you said calgon, I thought.... too funny. How in the world did you come up with calgon? Don't most recipes call for toxic or respiratory unfriendlies? How does the calgon work actually, as a binder? Thanks again, e.

[brookfieldpottery]

@monalisasmoustache Elizabeth I found calgon mentioned in an article online. There wasn't a lot of info but I thought I would give it a try. It contains some of the same ingredients as the more expensive t.sig recipes call for. Basically it acts as a suspension agent holding the lighter particles in suspension while the heavier sink to the bottom. All I know is that it works very well and I'm still using my first batch, so it keeps well too. Mark.

[nameralashun]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL COW DUNG!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mollyetta]

@brookfieldpottery --calgon is a deflocculant, like soda ash or sodium silicate. it causes unlike particles to repel one another, hence terra sigillata (add a deflocculant to a liquid clay suspension, and the particles in that suspension segregate, leaving, after 2-3 days of rest, distinctly visible layers. extracting the middle layer and disposing of the top and bottom garbage layers gives you terra sig.)

[brookfieldpottery]

I don't know. Logic would suggest that if you use the same stoneware clay to make the sig as you use to throw with it should work the same (shouldn't it?). After all basically t.sig is just tiny particles of clay which are smoothed into the surface of the pot.

You'll just have to try it and see Lynn. Just mix up a small amount first, in a glass.

Mark.

[ThatLynnGirl]

But it doesn't stay glossy if fired higher so earthenware it is, correct? And at cone 6 I'd be wasting my time, I wonder?

[youdanxxx]

Well,you did,and I'm glad I found this new technique. I mixed up some terracotta T.sig and have put some on a stoneware apple I made.

Stoneware Apple you ask ? I think I did a video of it.LOL.

It looks pretty shiny and a nice colour and went into the kiln today.

So I can't wait to see the result.

If it turns out well It'll be a real result,free "Glaze"

Cheers,Dan.