Raku
6 glazes / Mayco
Six raku glazes from Mayco, and the metallic end of the raku shelf.
Copper penny, oil slick, black metallic: these are the ones that come out of the can looking like metal rather than like glaze.
Cone 06Bisque to Cone 042 studio favorites
Search results
Results
Raku by the numbers
6glazes on our shelves
2good on texture
2studio favorites
2carry an up-charge
Friendly studio tip for this glaze family
You cannot use this shelf on your own. Raku runs as a workshop, at night, with tongs and gloves and somebody calling the moves, and attending one is what unlocks it. That is why these bottles carry a flame instead of a membership color.
Ask a staff member when the next one is, and watch your email.
Every Raku 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.
6 to choose from
How the Raku line works
Six glazes, fired the way all raku is fired: up to temperature, pulled red hot, and straight into a can of burning organic material with the lid slammed on.
The metallics in this line lean hardest on that reduction. They need the fire to run properly out of oxygen to come back as metal.
Coats
Brushed onto bisque. The metallic surfaces in this line want the material on the pot, so thin coats are the usual reason a raku piece comes back looking like nothing happened.
Layering
The can decides most of this. What it is packed with and how long the lid stays shut change a metallic surface more than any second coat.
Food and safety
Raku is not food safe and never will be. Not with a sealer, not with a liner glaze.
The body is fired hundreds of degrees below vitrification so it stays porous, the glaze is crazed, and raku glazes carry copper and other metals. It is not watertight either: water passes through the body over hours, so a raku vase full of flowers is a slow leak on your furniture.
Clays that suit Raku
Raku clay is not optional. The pot goes from around 2000 degrees to open air in about four seconds.
Use one of these threeB-Mix with Grog, 52 Buff, or Berlin Gray. Those are the bodies we raku on. A piece on anything else does not go in the firing.
Why grog mattersThe coarse particles give the thermal shock somewhere to go. A smooth, tight body has no give and cracks on the way out of the kiln.
Build for itSoften interior corners, reinforce seams with a blended coil, compress the floor. Narrow necks and sealed forms trap steam and are the ones that burst.
Decide earlyThis is the one firing where the making decisions happen weeks before the glazing does.
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.
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
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 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.