Making Ceramic Test Tiles

In this video an excerpt from his dvd understanding glazes.

Making ceramic test tiles.

General ideas regardless of the shape. Chances are you ll find one that makes sense with what you are making. How to test tweak and perfect your glazes john britt shows several different ways to make test tiles. To make simple melt test tiles i use this easy technique.

And to improve your results it helps to have test tiles that mimic the kind of work you make. The clay will brought to the edge of this in the form of a bottomless cylinder. Using a piece of high density foam and a 4x4cm piece of wood quickly press each square into the foam creating a shallow dish. Once they ve been through their first firing then you can test out your glazes on them.

Once bisqued these dishes can hold any type of crushed material for your next firing. Put some type of word. Put a hole somewhere to hang your tiles on a wall board or to hang off the handle of the bucket. It is generally a good idea to add texture to part of your test piece so you can see how the glaze will respond.

After centering spread the clay out flat similar to a plate. Roll out a slab of high fire clay and cut into 6x6cm squares. For this test tile we are using a 15 diameter bat.