Living through minimal mineral history

Throughout our lives we run out of a specific resource or minerals. At times these minerals are difficult to obtain for reasons other than being depleted. Policy and trade often get in the way. For example were going through a Gerstley borate issue at the moment. Not so much that it is out on the planet or cannot be found, more that policy has made it difficult. Kona f-4 Feldspar has been lost to time, mainly because we cannot find any more of it. Many of these minerals, now being difficult to obtain even for companies, are in popular glazes and clays. This results in people and companies having to reformulate their products. This in turn results in many off shoots and copies of people struggling to make the same quality glaze or product without the precious mineral they once had at their disposal.

A great example of this is a long standing glaze called Randy’s Red. A standard potter’s red glaze in almost every glaze makers book. Problem is because of mineral scarcity and formula change the original recipe is often lost to time. This is the case for Randy's red. The original recipe has been reformulated and watered down due to Kona and Gerstley borate being difficult to get a hold of. Luckily I finally got a hole of the original recipe. Even more I found out that I have been using the original this entire time. I guess i’m old enough to have lives through this glaze and it’s main minerals being reformulated to the point where I have been using the old, original, recipe. I did not see it on glazy however. So I put the original randy’s red recipe along with tests on the site ( I have enough Gerstley borate and Kona left to test it). This is less of a blog and more of a p.s.a . Make sure you write your recipes with notes and keep them safe in a little black book. You never know what's going to happen.

For the sake of history I will include the original Randy’s red recipe along with tests on red and white clay fired to cone 6 ox.