Low-Fire
22 glazes / Mayco
Before you go looking for these on the glaze shelves: they are low-fire glazes, and our glaze kilns only fire cone 5½. They are not out with the rest, and they are not meant to be.
We keep them because they work in a raku firing, which peaks in the low range Mayco built them for. If you want to use one, ask the owner.
Twenty one of the twenty two are crystal glazes from Mayco's Jungle Gems and Crystalites lines: gloss bases with pieces of glass frit mixed in, which melt in the firing and bloom into color. The odd one out is Amber Ash, from Mayco's Elements line.
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Low-Fire by the numbers
Friendly studio tip for this glaze family
What raku does to a crystal glaze is worth knowing before you pick one.
The crystals still bloom, because raku peaks in roughly the range these were made for. What changes is the surface around them: pocks and puckers from the thermal shock, and carbon trapping in the crazing and on any bare clay.
What you will not get is the metallic flash a dedicated raku glaze gives you. These are not built for it. The trade is crystal blooms, which nothing else on the raku shelf can do.
Every Low-Fire glaze we have in house
Hover any tile to see a pot fired in it, or tap once on a phone.
Jump straight to one
Nothing by that name.
22 to choose from
How the Low-Fire line works
Where you put a crystal is where it blooms. That is the whole technique, and it is why shaking the jar matters more than anything else: the frit is heavy, it sinks, and a coat brushed off the top of the jar carries almost none of it.
The tiles on this page are standard low-fire results, so you can see what each color actually is. Raku does something different to them.
Coats
Shake the jar hard before every coat. Then two to three even coats on cone 04 bisque with a soft fan brush, drying between coats.
Keep the crystals off the bottom third of anything vertical. Melted frit runs, and what runs off the pot lands on the shelf.
Layering
Raku peaks in roughly the same low range these are made for, so the crystals still bloom. What changes is everything around them.
A raku firing pulls the pot out glowing and drops it into a reduction can, so you get pocks and puckers in the surface and carbon trapping in the crazing and on bare clay. What you will not get is the metallic flash a dedicated raku glaze gives you, because these are not built for it.
That trade is the appeal. Crystal blooms are not something the raku shelf can otherwise do.
Food and safety
Two separate reasons this is decorative work. Mayco do not recommend crystal glazes for dinnerware, because melted frit leaves a surface that is hard to get properly clean.
And raku is never food safe and never watertight, no matter what glaze is on it. The body is fired hundreds of degrees below vitrification, so it stays porous.
Clays that suit Low-Fire
Raku needs a body that survives the thermal shock, which for us means B-Mix with Grog, 52 Buff or Berlin Gray. Those are the three we raku on.
From The Clay Hole University
More info about Low-Fire 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.
GuideGlaze Brushing Techniques, Coat by Coat
GuideGlazing Big and Intricate Pottery Faster
GuideGetting the Most Out of the Mega Glaze Tool
GuideMaking, Logging and Dialing in Test Tiles
GuideGlaze Problems, Causes and Fixes
GuideGlazing on the Wheel for Even Coats and Clean Bands
GuideBubble Glaze with Dish Soap
GuideMixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves
GuideMaking a Glaze Catcher
GuideOxide and Carbonate Washes
GuideWhen to Use Celadon Glazes
GuideHow to Use Dipping Glazes
UnderglazeHow to Use Underglaze: Techniques, Rules and Firing
UnderglazeMishima: How to Inlay Slip and Underglaze into Carved Lines
UnderglazeWipe-Away Texture: Underglaze and Oxide Washes on Bisque
The Low-Fire 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.