Raku

6 glazes / Amaco

You can watch raku happen. The lid comes off around 2000 degrees and the glaze is still moving in there, melted and bubbling and settling while you stand and look at it. Nothing else we fire lets you see that.

Then the pot comes out into open air and starts to sing. Fine ticking and pinging as the glaze crazes and cools, loud enough to hear across the yard. Then it goes in the can, and then in the water, and the color arrives.

Cone 05Bisque to Cone 04

Raku by the numbers

6glazes on our shelves
5good on texture
6discontinued by the maker

Not in circulation

Amaco has discontinued this line, and it is not available to members. It fires hotter than the raku glazes we use in our own firings, so it is not part of the workshop rotation.

These pages stay up because the chemistry is the same one our raku firings run on, and it is worth understanding. If you want to do raku here, the workshop is the way in.

How raku firing works Hear about the next workshop

Friendly studio tip for this glaze family

This line is here as a reference, not as a shelf you can shop.

Amaco discontinued it, and it fires hotter than the raku glazes we use, so it is not in circulation and not part of the workshop rotation.

The raku itself is still very much on. If you want to see glaze move in the kiln, hear it craze in the cold air and watch the color arrive in the water, come to a workshop. We fire it with different glazes and the chemistry is identical.

Every Raku glaze we have in house

Hover any tile to see a pot fired in it, or tap once on a phone.

Bluebell glaze test tile
Bluebell

AmacoRaku

🔥 Raku

No Tile· Discontinued

Amaco calls it a deep blue that develops an atmospheric, varied surface after a proper raku firing, and atmospheric is the right word. It does not come out as one blue. It comes out as weather.

Caribbean Blue glaze test tile
Caribbean Blue

AmacoRaku

🔥 Raku

No Tile· Discontinued

The brightest thing on this shelf. A blue-green that holds its color through the smoke rather than going moody, which makes it the one people reach for when they want the piece to read as color rather than as atmosphere.

Red Crackle glaze test tile
Red Crackle

AmacoRaku

🔥 Raku

No Tile· Discontinued

Copper reds over a surface that is meant to break. The crackle is not something in the glaze, it is a network of fault lines opened by the cold air, and the smoke from the can settles into every one of them as soot.

Smokey Blue glaze test tile
Smokey Blue

AmacoRaku

🔥 Raku

No Tile· Discontinued

The one that rewards paying attention to your reduction. In light reduction it is an intense dark cobalt. Applied thicker, those blues give way to dark reddish purple. Slightly heavier reduction lightens it and brings hints of silver metallic, and very strong direct reduction pushes it to brassy metallic surfaces.

Smokey Lilac glaze test tile
Smokey Lilac

AmacoRaku

🔥 Raku

No Tile· Discontinued

A muted purple that carries metallic movement wherever the reduction ran hardest. Amaco recommends two or three coats to get the color on their sample.

Tarnished Silver glaze test tile
Tarnished Silver

AmacoRaku

🔥 Raku

No Tile· Discontinued

A dry metallic gray that reads like silver somebody forgot to polish. It leans on the reduction harder than anything else we stock, because the metal look is the metal, pulled back out of the oxide by a fire with no air left.

How the Raku line works

Amaco has discontinued this line, and we are not putting it into circulation. It fires hotter than the raku glazes we use in our own firings, so it is not part of the workshop rotation and it is not available to members.

These pages stay up because the glazes are worth understanding. Raku chemistry is the same wherever it happens, and if you have seen one of these surfaces on a shelf somewhere and wondered how it got there, this is the explanation.

Coats

For the record, Amaco brushes this line in three coats onto cone 04 bisque and fires it to cone 05, about 1911F.

That is a hotter finish than the raku glazes our firings run, which is the reason this line is not in our rotation.

Layering

The can does more to these glazes than a second coat ever will. What you pack it with, how fast the lid goes on, and how long it stays shut change the surface more than anything you brush.

Amaco is blunt about the consequence: even from the same jar, in the same firing, no two pots come out the same. Tong marks and marks left by the reduction material are part of the finish, not faults in it.

Food and safety

Raku is not food safe and never will be. Not with a sealer, not with a liner glaze, not if you are careful.

The body is fired hundreds of degrees below vitrification so it stays porous, the glaze is deliberately crazed so it has a network of cracks running through it, and this line carries soluble copper. It is not watertight either. Water passes through the body over hours or days, so a raku vase full of flowers is a slow leak sitting on your furniture.

Clays that suit Raku

Raku clay is not optional and it is not a preference. The pot goes from near 2000 degrees to open air in about four seconds, and a body that is not built for that will come apart while you are holding it.

Use one of these threeB-Mix with Grog, 52 Buff, or Berlin Gray. Those are the bodies we raku on here. If your piece is on anything else, it is not going in this firing.
Why grog and sand matterThe coarse particles give the thermal shock somewhere to go. A smooth, tight body has no give in it and cracks on the way out of the kiln.
Build for the shockSoften interior corners, reinforce every seam with a blended coil, compress the floor properly. An uncompressed floor cracks in a normal glaze firing and stands no chance here.
Think before you close a formNarrow necks and sealed forms trap steam and pressure with nowhere to go. Those are the ones that burst.
Decide earlyThis is the one firing where the making decisions happen weeks before the glazing does. Ask an instructor before you build something specifically for raku.
Blocks of clay in the studio at The Clay Hole The complete guide to clay bodies What each body is made of and how it behaves under a glaze. The clay bodies we stock at The Clay Hole The clays we carry Every body on our shelf, with bag sizes and prices.

From The Clay Hole University

More info about Raku below, but first... Everything we teach about glazing, written down and taught properly. These are the glaze lessons, and they are a small corner of a library that runs from centering your first pot to selling your work.

Raku Firing: Techniques, Tips and How It Works RakuRaku Firing: Techniques, Tips and How It Works Glaze Brushing Techniques, Coat by Coat GuideGlaze Brushing Techniques, Coat by Coat Glazing Big and Intricate Pottery Faster GuideGlazing Big and Intricate Pottery Faster Getting the Most Out of the Mega Glaze Tool GuideGetting the Most Out of the Mega Glaze Tool Making, Logging and Dialing in Test Tiles GuideMaking, Logging and Dialing in Test Tiles Glaze Problems, Causes and Fixes GuideGlaze Problems, Causes and Fixes Glazing on the Wheel for Even Coats and Clean Bands GuideGlazing on the Wheel for Even Coats and Clean Bands Oxide and Carbonate Washes GuideOxide and Carbonate Washes When to Use Celadon Glazes GuideWhen to Use Celadon Glazes How to Use Dipping Glazes GuideHow to Use Dipping Glazes How to Use Underglaze: Techniques, Rules and Firing UnderglazeHow to Use Underglaze: Techniques, Rules and Firing Mishima: How to Inlay Slip and Underglaze into Carved Lines UnderglazeMishima: How to Inlay Slip and Underglaze into Carved Lines Wipe-Away Texture: Underglaze and Oxide Washes on Bisque UnderglazeWipe-Away Texture: Underglaze and Oxide Washes on Bisque
Browse all 170+ lessons and guides

Common questions about Raku

Can I use these glazes?

No. Amaco discontinued this line and it fires hotter than the raku glazes we use, so it is not in circulation and not part of the workshop rotation.

Why keep the pages up then?

Because the chemistry is worth understanding and it is the same chemistry we use. If you have seen one of these surfaces and wondered how it happened, this explains it.

Can I still do raku at The Clay Hole?

Yes. Raku runs as a workshop and we fire it with glazes that suit our schedule. Ask a staff member when the next one is and watch your email.

Why can I only get these colors from a raku firing?

The colors are metal oxides, and they only turn back into metal when something takes the oxygen away from them. That happens in the reduction can, where the fire runs out of air and starts pulling oxygen out of the copper in the glaze. An ordinary electric firing gives it nothing to react with.

What clay does raku need?

B-Mix with Grog, 52 Buff, or Berlin Gray. The coarse particles in those bodies give the thermal shock somewhere to go.

Are raku glazes food safe?

No, and they never will be. The body stays porous, the glaze is crazed on purpose, and raku glazes carry metals that do not belong near food. Raku pots are for looking at.

What is that ticking sound after the pot comes out?

The glaze crazing. It is cooling far faster than the clay under it, so it cracks into a fine network, and you can hear every one of them.

Browse every glaze and underglaze we carryAll Amaco glazesFind one on our shelves
Test tile pots lined up on the glaze shelves at The Clay Hole

The Raku test tile pot

This family does not have a test tile pot. The colors and results come out close enough to what the book shows that a pot would not tell you much more, so work from the printed Glaze Bible and the tile above.

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.

Download the Glaze Bible PDF