How to open the Mega Glaze Tool and walk out with a short list.
Every glaze and underglaze in the building lives in one searchable list. That is either the most useful page on this site or the most paralyzing one, and which of the two you get comes down to about four controls most people never open. Here is what they do, and what to do with what they hand you.
Every glaze and underglaze in the building lives in one searchable list. Four controls turn it from paralyzing into a short list you can carry to the shelf. Here they are.
Written down for the shelf. Filmed for the parts a sentence cannot show.
The short reason. You cannot scrub a video back to the four-minute mark with wet hands. You can look at a list.
Watching somebody glaze is the fastest way to understand what a word like pooling or breaking actually means. Nobody has ever learned that from a paragraph. Ten seconds of footage and it is obvious forever.
But video is a terrible way to hold onto a sequence. It moves at its own speed, it buries the one thing you needed at 6:41, and it is useless in a studio where your hands are covered in slip and your phone is face down on a paper towel. A short numbered list beats it every time, because you can glance at a list, lose your place, and glance again.
So the steps here are written out plainly, short enough to keep on a phone screen while you work. The videos sit next to them, and every one of them was picked because it shows a thing that words are bad at. Read the list, watch the clip once, then go back to the list. The two together stick better than either one alone, and that is the whole reason this page is shaped like this.
None of the videos are ours. They are from potters who explain this better than we would on a first try, and they are all credited by name and channel.
One list, one level, and everything else stacks.
The tool holds every glaze and underglaze in the building. Set your membership level once and it shows you what you can actually reach, at that level and everything below it. Every other filter you can pile on as many at a time as you like, and they narrow together.
Type a word into the search box for a name, a family or a color. Open Filters when you want to describe a finish instead of naming one. Then tap glazes to build a list, and take that list to the shelf.
Eight filter rows sit behind that button. Level, Type, Through it and Texture are the four that change your afternoon. Color, Sheen, Family and Only behave the way you would expect.
The color dots are sampled from our own fired test tiles, so treat them as a shortlist, never a promise. The Glaze Bible and the real tiles are what you decide on.
The 90-second path, if you only ever read one thing on this page.
This works whether you know exactly what you want or have no idea. Six steps, and the tool does the rest.
Six steps. Works whether you know exactly what you want or have no idea at all.
- 1Open Filters and set your level first
The only row where you pick one option instead of several. It changes every number underneath it. Set it once and the list stops showing you things you cannot have.
- 2Pick a color, or three
Every other row lets you choose as many as you want. Two or three colors is the right amount of narrowing. One is too tight, six is not a filter.
- 3Decide whether your piece has anything to show
Carved, stamped, textured, or painted with underglaze? Use Through it and Texture. Smooth pot with nothing underneath? Skip both rows entirely.
- 4Tap everything that catches your eye
Do not agonize. Tapping adds it to a running list at the bottom. Taking something back off is one tap. Six or eight candidates is a good place to stop.
- 5Save the list before you walk away from your phone
Save image is the one most members use. A photo in your camera roll survives a dead browser tab and opens with one thumb.
- 6Go look at the real tiles
Take your list to the Glaze Bible on the table by the mold room and cross off everything that looked better on a screen. Usually about half.
If you have no idea what you want at all, there is a Surprise me button that throws a random glaze at you. It is a better starting point than it sounds. Reacting to one specific glaze is far easier than choosing from everything, and you usually learn what you were after by deciding you do not want that one.
Type when you can name it. Filter when you can only describe it.
The tell. If the sentence in your head starts with a proper noun, type it. If it starts with an adjective, open Filters.
The search box takes a glaze name, a family name or a plain color word, and it is far more forgiving than people expect. Typing brown returns every brown glaze we carry, not just the ones with brown in the title. Typing celadon pulls the whole celadon shelf across every brand at once.
One thing worth knowing: a glaze that fires more than one color is filed under all of them. A rust-and-teal glaze turns up when you search rust and again when you search teal, which is exactly what you want and occasionally surprising the first time it happens.
Filters are for the other kind of question, the one where you do not have a name at all. You know you want something satin, something that will not swallow the pattern you carved, and something you can actually reach at your level. Nothing you type can ask that. Eight rows of filters can, and they narrow together rather than replacing each other.
Most useful sessions use both. Filter down to a family of candidates, then type a name into the box when one of them starts calling to you and you want to see its neighbors.
All eight rows, and what each one is actually asking you.
Open Filters at the top of the list and you get eight rows. They stack, so every one you touch narrows what the rest are working with. Here is what each is for and the thing about it that trips people up.
The one rule that explains the whole panel. Level is the only row where you pick a single option, and picking it shows you everything at that level and everything below it. Every other row lets you tick as many boxes as you like. If the list is behaving strangely, it is almost always because Level is set somewhere you did not mean.
Level
Green, Yellow, Purple, Black and Orange. Pick one, and you see that level plus everything under it, because a Black Level Member can use anything a Green Level Member can.
The catch: Orange is not a rung on the ladder. It is the shelf of glazes we keep here but do not supply, and any level is welcome to buy their own. It shows up for everybody.
Type
Brush-on glaze, underglaze, dipping glaze, raku and flux. The quickest way to strip out a whole category you are not working with today.
The catch: raku and flux are not part of any membership at any level, so leaving them ticked pads your results with things you cannot pull off a shelf on a normal studio day.
Color
Fourteen color families, from reds through to whites. Tick as many as you want. Two or three is the sweet spot for actually seeing something new.
The catch: a glaze that fires more than one color appears under each of them, so your count will not add up the way you expect. That is on purpose.
Sheen
Glossy, satin, matte and metallic, plus a Not listed yet bucket. This is the single fastest way to change how a finished piece feels in the hand.
The catch: sheen comes from the maker's own description, not from us. A handful do not state one, and those sit in the not-listed bucket until somebody checks them off a tile.
Through it
Translucent, semi-translucent or opaque. It answers one question: will anything you put underneath this still be visible after firing?
The catch: this is the row that saves carved and underglazed work, and almost nobody opens it. There is a whole section on it further down.
Texture
Two options. Some glazes keep carving, stamping and throwing lines crisp. The rest pool into them and soften them away.
The catch: neither one is better. Pooling is gorgeous on a smooth pot and a waste of an hour of carving on a textured one.
Family
The maker's own product lines and effect groups: shino, celadon, crystalline, reactive, crawl and the rest. Use it when you like one glaze and want to meet its relatives.
The catch: family is about how a glaze behaves, not what color it is. A celadon filter gives you every celadon in the building in fourteen different colors.
Only
Three switches. Studio favorites narrows to the ones we reach for over and over. No up-charge hides anything with a per-piece fee. Hide discontinued drops the ones we are not reordering.
The catch: discontinued does not mean gone. Those are still on the shelf and still yours to use until the last of one runs out.
When nothing comes back, you have almost certainly stacked one filter too many. Loosen the newest row first, then Color. If the list still comes back empty, Start over clears the whole panel in one tap and it is faster than undoing four choices by hand.
Through it: whether anything underneath survives the firing.
This row has three settings and they answer one question. If you have put something under your glaze, will you still be able to see it afterward?
Translucent lets the clay through, and anything you carved, stamped or painted with underglaze comes out the other side. Semi-translucent softens what is underneath instead of hiding it, which is the setting people reach for when a design feels too loud. Opaque covers whatever is under it completely.
That last word is the one that costs people an afternoon. Opaque means opaque. An hour of underglaze work under an opaque glaze is an hour you will never see again, and there is no thickness or firing that gets it back. Every glaze on the tool is tagged one of the three, so the tool can tell you before the kiln does.
The habit worth building: decide what is going under the glaze before you go looking for the glaze. If the answer is nothing, ignore this row entirely and use the whole shelf. If the answer is anything at all, set this row first and let it cut your options down before you start falling in love.
Underglaze needs a level. Speedball Underglazes sit at Purple Level and Amaco Velvet Underglazes at Black Level. Green and Yellow Level Members do not have underglaze yet, and no amount of money opens it, so the only way in is moving up a level. More on how underglaze behaves is on the underglaze guide.
Texture: crisp carving, or a soft pool where your carving used to be.
What happens to whatever is underneath.
Two filter rows answer the same question from different angles, and between them they decide whether the work you did before glazing is still there afterward.
Through it has three settings. Translucent lets carving and underglaze show through, semi-translucent softens them, and opaque covers them completely. Opaque means opaque, and no firing gets an underglaze design back once it is buried.
Texture splits the shelf in two. Some glazes stay put and let a carved line, a stamped mark or a throwing ring read as sharply after firing as before. Others move, run down into every low spot, and fill it in.
Neither behavior is a defect. A glaze that pools is doing something beautiful, gathering darker in the hollows and thinner on the high points, and on a smooth thrown pot it is often the more interesting choice. Put the same glaze on an hour of carving and the carving is simply gone, softened into a pleasant blur.
Neither is a defect. Pooling is gorgeous on a smooth pot and a waste of an hour of carving on a textured one.
So the row is not asking which glazes are good. It is asking what you did to the pot before you got here. Carved, stamped or textured, filter for the ones that hold it. Smooth, and you can pool to your heart's content.
Worth saying plainly: this is the filter that most often changes somebody's mind. People arrive certain they want a particular glaze, tick this row, discover it is one of the pooling ones, and go find its better-behaved cousin. That is the tool doing its job.
The one-question version. Did you put anything on this pot that you want to still see? If yes, set Through it and Texture before anything else. If no, ignore both rows and use the whole shelf.
A colored dot on a screen is not a fired pot.
The dots are a shortlist, not a decision.
The color dots in the tool are sampled from our own fired test tiles, which makes them far more honest than a manufacturer's product photo. It also makes them a guide and nothing more, and we would rather say that out loud than have you find out at the kiln.
A fired glaze is never one flat color. It gathers and thins, it goes darker where it pools and paler over an edge, and a single dot cannot hold any of that. On top of which, three things you control will move the result more than the dot suggests.
- The clay under it. The same glaze over a dark speckled body and over porcelain are not the same glaze in any sense that matters to your eye.
- How thick you put it on. Thickness is the single biggest variable most members underestimate. Two coats and four coats of the same bottle can be different colors.
- Where it lands in the kiln. A kiln is not uniform, and reactive glazes in particular will tell you so.
It gathers, thins, goes darker where it pools, and shifts with the clay underneath and how thick you brush it. A dot cannot hold any of that.
There is one more thing the dot cannot know, and it is the reason a swatch from the manufacturer's catalog can mislead you here. We fire glaze to cone 5½, which is cone 5 with a twelve-minute hold, and bisque to cone 05. A maker who photographed their sample at a different cone on a different clay body was telling the truth about their studio and not about ours. Our tiles were fired in our kilns.
We fire glaze to cone 5½, cone 5 with a twelve-minute hold. A manufacturer's swatch was shot at their cone on their clay, not ours. Our tiles were not.
So use the tool the way it is meant to be used. It is very good at turning the whole building into eight candidates. It is not the thing you decide with. Take those eight to the Glaze Bible on the table by the mold room, or to the tiles themselves, and let a real fired surface make the call.
Shortlist here. Decide at the Glaze Bible on the table by the mold room.
Tap a glaze and the tool starts building you a list.
Every glaze in the list is tappable, and tapping one adds it to a running grab-it list for today. Tap it again to take it back off. That list is the actual output of the tool, and it is the bit people scroll straight past.
Tapping a glaze adds it to a running list for today. Tap again to remove it. Four buttons sit under the list.
- Copy list puts it on your clipboard as text.
- Save image makes a picture of it. Use this one. It opens with one thumb and survives your browser closing every tab.
- Print gives you paper, which cannot go to sleep.
- Clear empties the list. Start over, in the filter panel, clears your filters instead.
Copy list
Drops the whole thing on your clipboard as text. Good for pasting into a note, a text message, or straight to whoever is coming to class with you.
Save image
Makes a picture of your list. This is the one to use. A photo in your camera roll opens with one thumb and survives your browser closing every tab while you were driving here.
Paper, which cannot go to sleep, run out of battery, or need a clean fingertip. Worth it if you are working through a big glazing session.
Clear
Empties the list and starts you over. Separate from Start over in the filter panel, which clears your filters instead.
There is also a Save or share this view button, which does something different and more useful than it sounds. It hands you a link that remembers your filters. Bookmark it and you land back on exactly the shelf you built, tomorrow or in six months. Send it to a friend and they see what you were looking at, which settles a lot of arguments about which blue you meant.
Build the list bigger than you need. Eight candidates at your desk turns into three once you are standing at the real tiles, and that is the correct shape for this to take. Deciding in front of a screen is the mistake. Shortlisting in front of a screen is the point.
Every badge on a glaze, and what it is telling you.
Each glaze carries a few small marks. They are the same marks used in the Glaze Bible, so learning them once pays off in both places. If they are cluttering things up, Icons to show and hide lets you turn off the ones you do not care about.
The same marks used in the Glaze Bible. Learn them once.
- ♥A studio favorite. One we reach for again and again. If you are stuck, this is the least risky filter in the whole panel.
- A colored level mark. Which membership level the glaze belongs to, in that level's own color. Green, Yellow, Purple, Black, and orange for the Orange Level shelf.
- ○Translucent. The clay, and anything carved or painted underneath, shows through.
- ◖Semi-translucent. Softens what is underneath rather than hiding it.
- ●Opaque. Covers whatever is under it, completely and permanently.
- ▩Holds texture. Keeps carving, stamps and throwing lines crisp instead of pooling into them.
- $Carries an up-charge. A small per-piece fee on top of your membership. The badge is there so you find out before you fall in love, not after.
- #A test tile number. Go to that number in the Glaze Bible and you are looking at the real fired surface. This is the most useful mark on the page and the one people notice last.
- MMetallic. Always shown, whatever else you have filtered.
- Raku. A small flame. Raku belongs to paid workshops only and is not part of any membership at any level, so this mark means look, do not plan.
- Disc.Not being reordered. Still on the shelf, still yours to use, we are simply not buying more. When the last of one runs out it comes off the list.
The rules the tool assumes you already know.
Your list is only useful if you are allowed to use what is on it. Three things gate the shelf, and none of them are in the filter panel.
Three things gate the shelf, and none of them are in the filter panel.
Certification, no exceptions
Every member watches the glazing video and signs the glazing agreement before touching any glaze. The brush-on certification opens the wall. The dipping certification opens the buckets, and it is separate.
Each one takes a few minutes. Watch, learn the rules, pass the quiz.
Your level, which money cannot move
If a glaze sits above your membership level, no fee opens it. The only way in is moving up a level, which you can do mid-month without waiting for a renewal date.
The one deliberate exception is the dipping buckets, which any level may use by paying per piece.
Up-charges are per piece
A dollar badge means a small fee on top of your membership, and it counts per piece rather than per session. Two up-charge glazes on one pot is two up-charges. One glaze on five pots is five.
Why the amounts are not printed anywhere. They move with what we pay for the glaze, and they come back down when our costs do. The current figure is always on the payment page, which is the only place that can be trusted to be right today.
Our own dipping glazes, and how long to hold them under.
Dip time is not the same for every bucket, so read the row rather than counting to three out of habit. The lid is always the final word.
| Glaze | Dip time | Level | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Hole | 3 seconds | Purple Level | Rich, vibrant, mottled blue, glossier satin |
| Bronzealot | 1 second | Purple Level | Bronze effect. Dip thinner for a duller finish, satin |
| Clear as Mud | 3 seconds | Purple Level | Crystal-clear glossy, good over sgraffito |
| Creamed Ice | 3 seconds | Purple Level | Creamy white with crystal tones of green and blue, satin |
| Dan’s Secret Sauce | 3 seconds | Black Level | Epic vibrancy. Stable or runny, always a surprise |
| Sunny Charcoal | 1 second | Purple Level | Dark, satin, classic finish |
| Tamjoda | 4 seconds | Purple Level | Pleasant, earthy, sage green, satin |
You have to be trained and passed off before you touch a bucket, at any level. Get signed off here.
Choosing was the hard part. Putting it on well is the learnable part.
Two clips from potters who work with the same brands sitting on our shelves. Neither is ours, and both are credited. The first is about getting an even coat, which is the difference between a glaze that looks like its tile and one that does not. The second is what happens when you start putting two of them together.
Our own method is written down too. Which brushes, how many coats, the drying cues between them, and how to fix streaks, all on the brush-glazing guide. If you are hunting for combinations rather than technique, the glaze combinations page points at the four best places online to find them.
The ones that come in by text, answered here instead.
Why does the number at the top not match the number of glazes I can count?
Because a handful of glazes in the studio are deliberately left off the list and always will be, and because the underglaze total includes privately mixed colors that only exist here and have no brand or family to file them under. The tool says so in its own fine print rather than quietly rounding. Everything you can see in the list is something you can actually go and find.
I filtered to my level and a glaze I used last month vanished.
Two likely reasons. It may be an Orange Level glaze, which shows for everybody because any level can buy their own, and which we do not supply. Or it may have come off the list because the last of it ran out. If you are sure it is still on the shelf, tell us and we will add it back. That happens, and we would rather hear about it.
Can I pay the up-charge to use a glaze above my level?
No. An up-charge is not a way around your level, and it only ever applies to glazes you can already reach. If a glaze sits above where you are, the way to it is moving up a level, which you can do in the middle of a month. The dipping buckets are the single exception: any level can use any bucket by paying per piece.
The color on my pot came out nothing like the dot.
Usually thickness, and after that the clay body underneath. The dots come from our own fired test tiles, so they are honest, but a single flat dot cannot show a glaze gathering in the low spots and thinning over the high ones. Before the next one, find the glaze's test tile number and go look at the real tile in the Glaze Bible. If a piece has come out fused or sharp, the fixing guide covers what can be rescued.
Does the tool know what my glaze will look like over my clay?
No, and nothing could. The tiles were fired on the clay they were fired on. The same glaze over a dark speckled body and over porcelain will read as two different glazes. Use the tool to shortlist, then ask somebody at the next wheel who has run that glaze on your clay. That conversation is worth more than any filter.
What is the difference between this and the Glaze Finder?
Different jobs. The Glaze Finder answers "where is this bottle", and points at its exact slot on the wall once you already know the name. The Mega Glaze Tool answers "which bottle do I want", and hands you a list. Most sessions use this one first and the Finder second, when your feet are already at the shelf.
I found something wrong in the list.
Good, please say so. Glazes arrive and glazes get discontinued and the list drifts. If something is on the shelf and missing here, or listed here and gone from the shelf, tell us and it gets fixed. The tool is still marked beta for exactly this reason.
The other four pages worth having open.
The Glaze Bible
Real fired test tiles, indexed by the same numbers the tool shows you. This is where a shortlist becomes a decision.
The Glaze Finder
Type a name and an arrow points at its exact slot on the wall. Use it once your list is made and your feet are at the shelf.
Glaze certification
Required before you touch anything on the wall. A video, the rules, a short quiz, and the whole shelf opens up.
Brush-glazing technique
Our own method, written out. Brushes, coat counts, drying cues, and how to fix a streaky one.
How to use underglaze
What underglaze does, when to reach for it, and what has to go over the top of it to survive.
Membership levels
What each level opens up, including how much of the glaze wall comes with it. The jump from Yellow to Purple is the big one.
Set your level, tick two colors, and see what happens.
Set your level, tick two colors, go.
You will not break anything. Filters clear in one tap, the list clears in another, and nothing you do in there commits you to a thing. The only real mistake available is the one most people make, which is scrolling the whole list with no filters on and leaving with nothing.
Ninety seconds of filtering beats twenty minutes of scrolling, every single time.
Filters clear in one tap and nothing you do in there commits you to anything. Ninety seconds of filtering beats twenty minutes of scrolling.
There is a longer version of this page with every filter explained and five videos. The toggle up at the top switches to it whenever you want.
Which version would you like to print?
Videos come out as a labelled box with the title and channel to search for, since paper does not play them.