Reviews and Comments

Here's what others are saying about Mastering Cone 6 Glazes

Book reviews have been published in several ceramic magazines. Here is the current list:

• Ceramics Monthly, April 2002, page 28

• Clay Times (Steven Branfman), May/June 2002, page 45

• Clay Times (Monona Rossol), July/August 2002, page 29

• Ceramics TECHNICAL (Paul Lewing), No. 14, 2002, page 111 (for the full text of this review scroll down)


Individuals are saying and writing..... (all reproduced with permission)

“What a stupendous book! I've read it from cover to cover and find it packed with excellent ideas, lovely glazes and solid concepts. This book marches glaze theory for potters miles into the future.” Jim Robinson, Phoenix, Oregon

"I'm looking forward to switching to your glaze bases. They are exactly what I've been trying to achieve for years, and you.... did all the work. If there's a poster child of someone who will be using your information professionally, it's me." Ken Russell, Clarksville, Missouri

"Best selling book we have ever stocked and we carry them all!!!!! Bob Millavec, Claymaker, San Jose, CA

"I am looking at about 50 tiles, all from your book. I tested all the recipes (using) my local standard frit instead of the ones in the recipes, and added colorants to the bases. Everything really looks very good. My frit gives a little more melt in the glaze, a little more fluid surface. But they all did what they should, glosses, semi mats and mats. I was especially pleased with Bright Sky Blue, Field Mouse Brown, Waxwing Brown, Spearmint and the Raspberry is very bright. The Licorice is the blackest gloss I have ever tried....So, there are some real breakthroughs here..." Alisa Liskin Clausen, Aabenraa, (South Jutland) Denmark

More to be added from time to time.......


Reproduced below (with permission of Ceramics TECHNICAL and the author, Paul Lewing) is the complete text of Paul's review of Mastering Cone 6 Glazes.


Mastering Cone 6 Glazes by John Hesselberth and Ron Roy

Review by Paul Lewing, ceramic artist from Washington, USA.

Buy this book if you ever intend to fire another load of cone 6 glazes in an electric kiln. Buy it if you have been firing at cone 6 for years and have all the other books on the subject; this will become your first reference choice. Buy it if you are just starting to fire at cone 6; with this and a copy of Hamer & Hamer's Potter's Dictionary of Materials & Techniques, you won't need another book for years. You might even want to buy it if you fire to some other temperature than cone 6, or in reduction.

What makes John Hesselberth and Ron Roy's new text so remarkable is that it is almost entirely new information, based on their original research. The subtitle, 'Improving Durability, Fit and Aesthetics', indicates what their focus is. Never before has a glaze text provided hard data on stability and oxide leaching, with simple do-it-yourself tests as well as information on professional lab testing. No text has ever gone into such detail on the effects of firing and cooling schedules on glazes. This is also one of the new generation of texts to really take into account the benefits of computers in ceramics, in using both glaze calculation and kiln controlling software. And they include the first set of limit formulas in the history of ceramics to be based on scientific testing, rather than on simple observation.

This book would be immensely valuable if the only chapter you read was the one on 'Fitting Glazes to Your Clay Body'. Hesselberth and Roy begin by explaining crazing, dunting and shivering, and show you how to interpret dilatometer test results, which is how they scientifically measure glaze fit. Then they provide you with five test recipes of differing expansion values. One of these recipes should come close to fitting your clay body and methods of working, and they show you how to further adjust your glazes for perfect fit. Also included are a number of glaze recipes, with essential information on how to fire and cool each of them. This firing information is in fact so critical to the glaze performance that the authors ask people not pass the recipes on to people who have not read the book. Incidentally, all the recipes are made with widely available and predictable materials. But you really should, if you want to do anything original with glazes, develop your own recipes, and this book will be an enormous help with that too.

At the end are appendices on recommended materials, Seger unity formula calculation, glaze calculation software programs, glaze testing laboratories and references for leaching data, firing cycles for electric kilns, materials analyses, and limit formulas.

This book is primarily directed at firing to cone 6 in an electric kiln, but much of the information in it would be helpful to potters working at any temperature, or in any atmosphere. The authors even provide some handy rules of thumb for inventing recipes that will stand up to the acidic and alkaline conditions found in food preparation and dishwashers. The writing style throughout is precise, straightforward and easy to understand, even in the most technical chapters. This is a book written by potters (one of whom is also a chemist) for potters. It will become a classic.

© 2013 John Hesselberth and Ron Roy, all rights reserved.