Blue Rutile
PC-20
Blue Rutile is a gloss brush-on glaze from Amaco's Potter's Choice line, fired cone 5 to cone 6. Active, flowing, variable.
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Friendly studio tip for this glaze
Leave more bare clay at the foot than you think you need. This one runs, and it will find the kiln shelf if you give it a chance.
The quick version of Blue Rutile
What this glaze does
Amaco calls it one of the best sellers in the line, and the reason is that it never does the same thing twice. Thick, it is a flowing light blue. Thin, it breaks brown. Between those two states it stays busy: streaking, pulling, and following whatever the form gives it.
Rutile is what makes it move like that, and this is about as active as a mid-fire brushing glaze gets.
How much it varies
Deliberately unpredictable. Amaco describes it as active and complex, and it is one of the more variable glazes in the line from firing to firing.
Clays that suit Blue Rutile
Opaque enough to cover the clay, though the brown thin-coat break can pick up warmth from an iron-bearing body. Amaco fires the line's sample tiles on white stoneware.
Thirty three of these forty six glazes are opaque, so on most of them the clay underneath is a surface to sit on rather than part of the finished color. The other thirteen see through to some degree, and those are the ones where your clay choice really shows.
Applying this glaze to your work
Three coats. Because thick reads blue and thin reads brown, how evenly you brush it decides how much brown appears in the finished surface.
How much it moves
Amaco calls it a very fluid glaze, which is the strongest fluidity language they use on this line. It will run if you let it. Stop it high on the pot and leave the foot bare.
Amaco's instruction for the line is three brush coats, not thinned, each one dry before the next. Their own guidance says most disappointing results come from glaze applied on the light side. Amaco publishes an application guide showing what too thin and too thick actually look like.
Layering
Amaco flags it for layering, and their own published favorites include two coats of Blue Rutile followed by two coats of Textured Turquoise for a rich float of light color. That combination is noted as a bit runny when fired.
Amaco's own combination tiles usually show two coats of each glaze, which lands four coats total anywhere the two overlap. Their standing advice is to test a tile before committing a piece, and to re-test when a new batch number arrives, since raw materials shift between production runs. Dipping versions of these glazes behave differently from the brushing jars and are much harder to layer.
From The Clay Hole University
More info about Blue Rutile 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
GuideGetting Great Results with Crystalline Glazes
GuideOxide and Carbonate Washes
GuideWhen to Use Celadon Glazes
GuideHow to Use Dipping Glazes
RakuRaku Firing: Techniques, Tips and How It Works
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
Firing Blue Rutile
Amaco rates the line for cone 5 and cone 6, published as 2167F and 2232F on a medium speed firing, over bisque fired to cone 04. With a very fluid glaze, kiln shelf protection matters more than usual.
None of this is yours to manage. We handle everything on the kiln side, and every glaze on our shelves can be fired safely in our studio.
Common problems with Blue Rutile
Why is my pot mostly brown?
The application was thin. Brown is the thin-coat color, so a light hand gives you a brown pot with a hint of blue.
Why did it pool at the bottom and run?
Blue Rutile is a fluid glaze and it moves in the firing. That is exactly the behavior to expect from three coats on a vertical wall.
Why does it look different from the tile?
Rutile glazes react to form, thickness and neighbors. Variation is the product, not a fault.
What to put it on
Forms and surfaces
Textured work, and any form with a shoulder or a curve for the glaze to break over. Amaco recommends it for both layering and texture.
Colors beside it
It contains blue and brown already, so it pairs naturally with turquoise, cream and warm neutrals. Adding a third strong color usually muddies it.
Food and function
Amaco rates this glaze food safe and dinnerware safe, lead free and AP Non-Toxic. Its fluidity is the practical consideration on functional work rather than its safety rating.
Every glaze in the line is lead free and, by Amaco's rating, dinnerware safe except PC-4 Palladium and PC-64 Aventurine. Amaco's own label carries the standard caution that anyone producing tableware should test finished ware, because firing temperature and contamination vary between kilns.
Our test tile pots
Every glaze family on our shelves has its own test tile pot, and it is the fastest way to decide what to put on a piece. It is a fired pot wearing the whole family, one numbered tile per glaze, on a surface built to show you what that glaze actually does rather than just what color it is.
- 1Find the pot The brand and family name are written on the rim. This glaze lives on the Amaco Potter's Choice pot.
- 2Find the tile This one is tile #17. The numbers match the ones in the Glaze Bible.
- 3Read it properly Look at what the glaze does across all four textures, not just what color it is.
What to look at on the tile
Some glazes tell you loudly that they run. Others hide it. Look at how the brushed lines fired: crisp edges mean a stable glaze, and edges that went soft and fluid mean it moved, and it will move on your pot too.
Other glazes close to Blue Rutile
Textured Turquoise moves similarly with more green. Sapphire Float gives a rutile float on a steadier blue. Iron Lustre is the restrained, brown-first relative.
Looks great paired with
Put these on the shelf beside it, or on the next pot in the same set.
About the Amaco Potter's Choice Family
Potter's Choice is the line Amaco built so an electric kiln could do what a gas kiln does. Released in 2004, it reaches for the depth of cone 10 reduction glazes at cone 5 and cone 6 in ordinary oxidation. That is the whole premise, and it is why the surfaces break, pool, float and shift instead of sitting flat.
It is one of the most layered brushing lines in American pottery, and Amaco keeps a public library of combination tiles for it. Most of the effects potters chase come from two of these glazes meeting on one pot.
Made by Amaco, a company that has been building glazes and kilns in Indianapolis since 1919. The Potter's Choice line arrived in 2004 and has been a reference point for mid-fire reduction looks since.
More ways to pick a glaze
Membership levels that may use this glaze: Purple & Black
Not sure whether this glaze suits what you are making, or how it works with our system here? Ask an instructor. That is what we are here for, and a two minute conversation at the shelf beats a fired pot you did not want.
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.