Section: Glazes, Subsection: General

Description

Fara Shimbo's book on crystal glazes is the most understandable and practical we have seen. The book is full of color pictures and test tiles.

Article

Have you always wanted to create cyrstalline glazes? Then this is THE book. Kiln controllers were supposed to make crystal glazes easy. What happened? As usual, understanding the materials and chemistry makes all the difference. And there are so many other little things to know about clay, firing, shape of ware, application of glaze, etc. You cannot afford not to be aware of the research of Fara Shimbo.

She has made every mistake and documented every success. Page after page of beautiful color sample tile grids and exactly what you need to do to make them. Fara does not just grow crystals, she 'farms' them. She fringes them, shapes them, seeds them, mixes different types, colors them, co-ordinates them with the background, she even names them. Fara is a woman in love with crystals. She has developed a 'language of crystals' and her enthusiasm is so contagious that the readers will also entertain leaving regular pottery for the lure of crystals. The idea of concentrating on form and letting the glaze do the decorating is very compelling.

There is something for everyone in this 225 page book. Yes, there is lots of eye candy and glaze recipes but also more technical information on firing, the chemistry of crystals and color and trouble shooting than you will find anywhere else. Just wait till you see how Fara does reduction firing in an electric kiln.

This book is a landmark in ceramic publishing. Not only does it treat this complex subject in the most comprehensive way yet, but it is an *Acrobat eBook. It has no constraints on size, it is full color throughout and it is easily available and less expensive than paper books (a paper version will be available also). You can print any pages you need or take the CD to a service bureau and have them print it in color.

The future of ceramic recipe, material and physical testing record keeping is here.

Watch the video or sign-up at http://insight-live.com.

Maintain your recipe database on-line

Login to a private account or work with others in a group account (e.g. university).
Nothing to install (access it using your web browser). It is always the latest version.
Easy to import your existing data.
As many side-by-side recipes as you want.
Many ways to search and classify glaze and body recipes.
Glaze and body recipes are robust, with units-of-measure, unlimited pictures with individual titles and descriptions.
Add variations to a recipe; each with its own pictures, descriptions and name/code-number extensions.
Recipes can link to typecodes, projects and firing schedules (all managed in their own areas).
Standard reports and mix ticket reports with last-minute-totalling; variations report as if they are a complete recipe.
Video tutorials, help system, contact form on every page, dedicated messaging and support ticket systems.
It is an industrial-strength database system (unlimited capacity, fast, reliable, scalable).

Imports many file formats

Glaze recipe formats supported: HyperGlaze, GlazeGhem, GlazeMaster, Matrix, INSIGHT XML recipes (single and multiple), INSIGHT SQLite DB files.
Assign a batch number to imports, and later search by batch.
Assign multiple typecodes to imported glaze and body batches (to classify) and search on these later.
Prepend character sequences to glaze recipe names during import.
Import the pictures and pair them to their corresponding records automatically.
One click to automatically export the database to an SQLite DB database file and download it (for use with desktop INSIGHT or just as a backup).
Export and import individual glaze recipes as text or XML.

Perfect for Education

Ceramic study programs can now accumulate material, recipe and testing data year-after-year, students can login and together build a valuable ceramic glaze and body knowledge resource.
Students already have internet connected devices, computers are not even needed in the class.
The Reference Manager gives you quick access to the Digitalfire Ceramic Reference Database.

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