Laser Fired Ceramic Glaze

My wife (a skilled potter with her own studio) has been working on laser firing ceramic glazes. (She’s currently working up a proprietary glaze formulation specifically for this use.)

Here’s some test firings she did with off the shelf commercial glazes and her own proprietary (non-laser specific) formulations:

First is a five panel sampling using (from left to right): Proprietary Raisin Cone 6, Proprietary Black Cone 6, Amaco Obsidian Cone 5/6, Proprietary Gold Cone 6, Mayco Stroke & Coat Football Cone 06/10

The substrate is .250" thick bisque fired cone 6 white stoneware.

The lines were run as manual cuts, .250" focal point, at the following speeds (from left to right), all at full-power, basic model: 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450 Glowspeed

All the lines were fully vitrified.

After firing:

After the un-fired glazee was scrubbed off:

She also gave “engraving” a try. The following were all done on the same substrate with Amaco Obsidian cone 6.

After firing:

After the non-fired glaze was scrubbed off and firing number notated:

All were fired in manual at 340 LPI, .250" focal point.
#1:“Convert to Dots”, Full Power, 300 Glowspeed
#2:“Map to Power”, Full Power, Min 50, 300 Glowspeed
#3:“Map to Power”, Full Power, Min 5, 300 Glowspeed
#4:“Map to Power”, Full Power, Min 5, 500 Glowspeed
#5:“Map to Power”, Full Power, Min 5, 600 Glowspeed
#6:“Map to Power”, Full Power, Min 5, 700 Glowspeed
#7:“Map to Power”, Full Power, Min 5, 800 Glowspeed
#8:“Map to Power”, Full Power, Min 5, 900 Glowspeed
#9:“Map to Power”, Full Power, Min 5, 1000 Glowspeed

You may not see in the pictures, but these photo “engraves” have depth. Well, a positive relief, anyway.

She is going to take them all and actually fire them to a cone 6 and see if they change at all. This is more to verify if they were actually fully vitrified by the laser. I’ll report back when she has the results.

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This is awesome! Something I had not thought of but has endless possibilities! Great write up and tests. I will be following.

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Wow. This could be really cool. Especially with control of multiple colors.

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This is unbearably exciting. So much potential in this method. Keep us updated, and thanks for the great write-up!

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Very interesting and so much potential , thanks for sharing. I look forward to the updates.

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Very nice.

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Does your wife do any lustre work ?
Wondering if gold lustre could work with this method, specifically on fired porcelain.
John

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Very cool!

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Awesome! Can’t wait to see the fired results.

Very much a part of some of my thinking that would include using the laser to produce the metasilicate (fired clay) and then putting in water to wash off the unfired clay. I also have knowledge of what is needed to produce clays, glazes, and free-standing “glass” with formulas that I made doing the research years ago. I was working in Furnace Glass before going to porcelain etc so got a different perspective than those who went the other way.

Other thread here

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Gold luster fires very low and will work on anything smooth as a result the cone 022 is about the coolest temp available and relates to many things like the speed of heating and the time there but is around 1100 degrees F. if you filled an engrave and wiped off the excess It could work as we have discussed elsewhere, but it is too hot for a household style oven (and leaves not nice things you don’t want in food) so perhaps an enameling kiln would work.

btw gold luster scratches off easily.