1
Amaco Honey Flux
Amaco Flux
The one to learn on. It moves enough to show you what a flux does without moving so far that your first attempt ends up on the shelf.
Our Flux Glazes
Seven glazes whose job is not to be a color. They melt, they run, and they take whatever is underneath along with them.
- Glazes
- 7
- Makers
- 3
A flux, in the chemistry sense, is anything that lowers the melting point of a glaze. A flux glaze takes that idea and makes a product of it: a glaze formulated to melt further and flow more than the one it is sitting on, so the glaze underneath gets dragged into movement it would never have found on its own.
That is the whole point. On its own a flux is usually pale and unremarkable. Over another glaze it is a solvent and a river at once, pulling color down the pot in streaks and pooling it wherever the form gives it a place to stop.
Which also means a flux is the fastest way to put a pot on the kiln shelf. Anything that flows can flow off the bottom. Keep it well up off the foot, put something underneath, and treat the first one you fire as an experiment rather than a finished piece.
Seven of them, from four makers. They are shown together rather than split by brand, because with one or two from each maker the brand is the least interesting thing about them.
Where to start
7 is a lot to look at. If you want three, these are the three.
2
Mayco Dark Flux
Mayco Flux
The one that changes a pot the most. Over a light glaze it drags dark streaks the whole way down and pools them at every change of angle.
3
Spectrum Running Hot Chowder
Spectrum Flux
It is named for what it does. Treat the first firing as an experiment and put something under the pot.
Every one we stock
Grouped by maker. Every tile is one we fired ourselves.
Every one we stock
7Amaco, Mayco, Spectrum and Speedball, side by side. None of the seven is shelf stock, so every one of them is a jar you buy and bring.
Swipe or use the arrows, 7 in this row
How to test one without losing a pot
Take a tall test tile rather than a flat one, because a flux only shows what it does on a vertical surface. Put a solid dark glaze over the bottom two thirds. Band the flux across the top third only. Leave the bottom inch bare so you can see exactly where the movement stopped.
Fire it upright on a cookie or a piece of scrap kiln shelf. What you get back is a map of how far that flux travels and how much of the glaze underneath it drags along, and you will know that before you commit anything you care about.
Where the movement stops
Glaze runs until it cools enough to stop, which means the shape of your pot decides the result as much as the glaze does. Every change of angle is a place where a running glaze slows and pools: the underside of a rim, a carved band, the shoulder of a form, a foot ring.
Use that. A flux over a pot with three horizontal steps in it gives you three pools of concentrated color. The same flux on a straight cylinder gives you streaks and a puddle on the shelf.
Common questions
What does a flux actually do?
It melts further than the glaze under it and pulls that glaze into movement, usually downward.
Can I use one on its own?
You can, and it will mostly look like a plain pale glaze. That is not what they are for.
Will it run onto the kiln shelf?
It can. Keep it well up off the foot and put something under the pot.
Where do I start?
One flux over one solid dark glaze, on a test tile, on a vertical surface so you can see how far it travels.
Are there other fluxes here?
Yes. Speedball make three inside their Mid-Fire line, and they live on that family page.
Do they count toward my membership level?
Each glaze page states its own level. Some fluxes are order-your-own rather than shelf stock.
Fluxes are the one part of the shelf where a failed test is still worth photographing. Nothing else moves like this.
Also worth a look
About these images and what your pot will actually look like
We have done our best to represent every glaze here accurately, and you should still expect your pot to look different from what is on this screen.
Our glaze tile images are digitally created. They are built to show the character of a glaze, not to be a color match.
A screen is not a printout, a printout is not a test tile, and a test tile is not a finished pot. Each step in that chain shifts what a glaze looks like, sometimes a lot.
On top of that, the pottery itself changes the result: the clay body, how thick the glaze went on, whether it was brushed, dipped or sprayed, what was layered under or over it, where the piece sat in the kiln, how hot that spot ran, how fast it cooled, what was fired next to it, and how much texture the surface had. Two pots glazed from the same jar on the same day can come out different.
Treat every image here as a starting point, and treat a test tile fired on your own clay as the real answer.