Help Center

Clay Terms

texture/workability/the feel of clay - different clay bodies have different "personalities" one might say, based entirely on the natural properties of their ingredients.  

• plasticity - this refers to how far you can push a clay - how much it bends before it breaks you might say.  some ingredients have very low plasticity and then there's ball clay, which is named somewhat for literally the fact that it sticks together into a ball so easily (highly plastic) 
• short - when someone says a clay body is short, it means it lacks plasticity.  If you roll out a coil of clay and wrap it around your finger and it breaks, it's short!  
• toothy - this refers to clay bodies usually with a lot of fireclay or just something that gives it more structure.  not quite the way adding grog will do, just that feeling that they clay itself has some toughness (typical of a stoneware body)
• thixotropic- that's a fun one to say.  It describes (usually a porcelain) a clay that becomes VERY stiff as it ages...almost makes you think it's unusable, but then softens up and responds nicely once you start to work with it.  

technical details - it's the math and science of art!!! these are all of the testing and measurements that we do on a clay.  This information can be very useful  to consider among the many other concerns when selecting the right clay for your purposes.

• shrinkage - as the water evaporates from the clay and the remaining particles tighten, it shrinks.  this is wet to dry shrinkage.  in the bisque firing, the chemically bound waters and lots of other organics burn out and it shrinks a bit more.  Then again if your glaze firing is hotter than your bisque, it will shrink yet again.  Typically the OVERALL shrinkage of clay is 12%, so if you make a 10" cylinder, after firing it will be 8.8" tall.  
• absorption - this is the measurement of how much water a completely unglazed clay body will hold after its final firing. There are many strong opinions about how much absorption a clay body should have at maturity. 
• porosity - this is a measurement of how open the body is, or literally how many pores it has.  It differs from absorption whenever there are fully closed pores encapsulated within the clay body.  For more thorough and technical explanation, check out Tony Hansen's Digital Fire Database article on porosity

stages of clay dryness: (check out Bill Bracker's explanation of the firing cycle)

• Greenware - freshly made works for clay that have not yet been fired.
• Leather hard - when clay has dried out just a bit and has the feeling/stiffness of supple leather.  
• Bone dry - fully dried of all its physical water and ready to fire. 
• Bisque - Clay that has been through an initial firing to complete the chemical change. 

types of clay -

• Earthenware - a low-fire clay body typically fired between cone 06-02. While mature at these cones, earthenware bodies do not fully vitrify, and require a glaze or post-fire sealant to be water tight.
• Stoneware - clay bodies that mature at mid-to-high fire (cone 4-12) depending on the specific recipe. These have excellent working properties due to their inclusion of Fireclay or Ball clay.
• Porcelain - Kaolin-based clay bodies that are typically mid-to-high fire; cone 5-12 depending on the specific clay. These bodies fire off-white to white, and have a very fine particle size. They tend to be less plastic than Stoneware and Earthenware bodies.
• Porcelaneous Stoneware - Typically mature at mid-to-high fire (cone 4-12 depending on recipe). These are a hybrid clay made up of a significant amount of Kaolin, as well as additions of Ball, Stoneware, or Fireclay.

Glaze Terms

The three basic parts to every glaze

• flux - Determines when the glaze melts/matures
• glass former - this is either silica, flint or quartz. In the USA, we use these terms synonymously. The percentage of glass former determines how glossy the surface is, more siilca = gloss, less silica = refractory (satin/matte)
• colorant - all of the oxides and carbonates (cobalt, iron, copper etc) blended in a variety of percentages. Could also be mason stains!

Additional ingredients lend different properties to glazes.

Characteristics

• stiff - glazes that do not run, even when fired vertically
• flowing - glazes that flow more during the firing process and create runny, blended effects
• "breaking" - glazes that show different colors or textures especially when applied over texture
• translucent - color that is sheer and shows off what is on the surface of the clay
• opaque - color that you can not see through.
• gloss/satin/matte - the shininess of the finished glaze. Some manufacturers use satin and matte interchangeably.
• Dinnerware Safe/Food Safe - “Dinnerware Safe” indicates the fired glaze surface meets the FDA guidelines for food safe, and the fired surface is free of surface texture that could potentially trap bacteria, and the fired surface is chemically durable. “Food Safe” is a regulation and is defined by the Compliance Policy Guide, which is maintained by the FDA and only applies to lead and cadmium release.
• AP Non Toxic - refers to the raw state of the glaze and clarifies that there are no ingredients in the glaze that are harmful if consumed.

Other decorating /color producing products (aka glaze cousins)

• stain - a fritted combination of several materials to create a stable color in powdered form. Can be used in a variety of ways. See our page on Mason Stains
• engobe/slip - a liquidy mixture of chemicals with a high clay content that is often used to change the surface color of clay, such as a white engobe or slip that is applied to leather hard red clay for either sgraffito technique or simple to allow for better color results with underglazes
• Terra Sigillata - a refined slip that uses only the finest particles of clay, usually used in combination with burnishing to provide a beautiful sheen to fired ware
• Underglaze - another liquid colorant that is usually available in a rainbow of colors. Underglazes are also very versatile in application (can be used on leather hard or bone dry greenware or on bisque); temperature (most underglazes are stable up to cone 10); and preparation (underglazes can also be formulated as watercolor, chalk, pencil and marker)

Defects: Check out this great blog article on common defects written by Haley Stanaford. For detailed information, check out the Glaze Defects and Adjustments PDF we have available for download

• Crazing - little cracks on the surface of the glaze usually resulting from glaze to clay body fit mismatch
• Shivering - glaze that just falls off the surface of the clay, also due to fit problems
• Crawling - when the glaze beads up leaving a bare spot of clay, usually due to dirty bisque
• Pinholing - tiny holes in the surface of the glaze left behind by gasses escaping from the clay body through the glaze, most commonly caused by underfired bisque or glaze firing too fast

Kilns & Firing Terms

Cone - both a physical thing AND a measurement level.  Cones are the combination of a variety of ceramic materials that have been carefully combined and pressed together into a cone shape.  As heat is applied to them over a period of time, the materials in the cone begin to melt and the cone then bends.  This gives the person firing the kiln a visual cue for when the pieces are mature.  We also use cone to denote the firing temperature (or range) of a clay or glaze. 

Bisque - a very slow-firing profile that provides extra time at the beginning of the firing to allow for all of the free water and chemically-bound water to evaporate from the clay. For more information, click here to view "Bill Bracker's explanation of the firing cycle"  typically Cone 05-03 for electric fired ceramics.  Raku, Gas or wood firie bisque is typically around 012-08

Glaze - the second firing of a ceramic piece.  Earthenware glazes are typically fired to cone 05.  Stoneware and porcelain glazes can be cone 4-6 in an electric kiln or 8-12 in gas or wood kilns.  Raku Firing typically does not use cones, rather the glazes are fired to visual maturity

Lustre/Decal/018 - typically a third firing in which lustres, decals or china paints are applied to a glazed surface and then fired at a very low temperature of 020-016

Oxidation - typically synonymous with electric kiln firings.  Oxygen is present throughout the firing.

Reduction - a process in gas/wood firing in which the volume of flame introduced to the firing chamber exceeds the available oxygen.  In an attempt to continue combustion, oxygen molecules are transferred from the glaze or clay body itself. This reduction of oxygen transforms glazes significantly at the chemical level (for instance, RED IRON OXIDE has a chemical formula of FE2O3 (2 iron molecules bond with 3 oxygen molecules).  In a reduction atmosphere, the combustion process "steals" the oxygen from the FE2O3 and reduces it to its minimum bond, FeO (one iron and one oxygen).  This material is BLACK.)

Slow Cool / Fire Down - some glazes require a controlled cooling environment, usually for the growth of crystals in the glaze.  Other glazes just benefit from being allowed to cool more slowly.  With comptuer controllers on kilns it is now much easier to program your kiln to continue to run the elements intermittently to minimize temperature drop, usually during the first 500ºF

Furniture - 

• shelves
• posts
• stilts
• kiln wash

Thermal Shock

Vitrification

glow test - one of the first steps in diagnosing possible kiln problems.  This is described in detail on Dave's old tech tip "shining a light on the glow test"

Julia Galloway's Field Guide For Ceramics 

Simon Levin's Cohorts Program

DigitalFire Database

The Marks Project

Art Axis

Brian Harper's "The Clay Bucket"

Glaze Defects and Adjustments

Plaster Mixing Instructions

Egyptian Paste Information

Diversity in Clay Inspiration and Teaching Resource 

How to calculate specific gravity

Firing Log

Glaze Defects and Adjustments

Plaster Mixing Instructions

Egyptian Paste Information

How to calculate specific gravity

Firing Log

Do you have a kiln, wheel or other piece of ceramic equipment you need help with? Fill out this form to get your repair started

When you fill out our online repair form and complete your repair consult payment, your repair will be triaged by one of our experienced staff members. 

1. An experienced staff member will review the information you provided and confirm your initial payment.  Your initial payment will cover the review of your stated problems and our initial response.

2. A tech (if you already know Dave, "tech" usually means Dave, but we're leaving that door open, as Dave does sometimes train other people out here. If you don't know Dave, click here) will be assigned to your repair ticket and will contact you with next steps.  This can happen in as little as a few hours or may take a couple of days, depending on whether the techs are out on service calls.  We strive for a next day response whenever possible

3. The next step may be

1. to request additional photographs, video or other information (covered by your initial payment)
2. to have you run a simple test to help them solve your issue without a diagnostic visit (covered by your initial payment)
3. to initiate a remote consultation to walk you through diagnostic steps (including a quote for this cost, MAY be covered in your initial payment)
4. to schedule an onsite diagnostic visit (including a quote for this cost)
5. a link directly to the part you need to solve your problem and installation instructions (covered by your initial payment)

4. Once you approve and pay for the quote to proceed, we will schedule the next step.  Please note that onsite diagnostic visits often take 2 weeks to schedule (more during busy times) 

5. If the diagnostic for your equipment (whether onsite or remote) indicates parts are needed, you will be provided with a quote for the parts and labor to install.  We do also offer remote installation assistance for MANY parts, which is a less expensive and faster option.  Please let us know if you are interested in being quoted that option.  

6. After you have approved and paid the quote, your parts will be ordered.  

7. When the parts arrive, your repair will be scheduled.  Due to a variety of factors, we can not schedule repairs until the parts arrive.  There have just been too many times where the universe decides to wreak havoc on plans made before all the pieces are in place.  

If at any time you have a question about the status of your repair, the best way to ask is to send an email to tech@brackers.com. Not only will this go to both of our repair techs, it will also be attached to your repair ticket in our monitoring system, which is reviewed regularly by other staff members at Bracker's.  Often, even if the techs are out of the building, city, or state, someone here can find some information and get back to you, or at least let you know when the techs will be back in the office.  

If you have landed here, you may be brand new to working with us.  If so, welcome!  We're happy to have you join our clay family.   On this page and the other pages linked above, you can find tons of information about how we do things here.  Now, we are NOT going to make you read through this and present you with some kind of Apple-inspired check box that you agree to the terms and conditions, BUT, if you call to ask a question that we have answered here, we WILL just refer you back here. sooo.. you know, the decision is yours....

In general, we are individual-focused.  No two shoppers have the same needs and preferences and we do try to tailor our services to your needs.  Online shopping can be very cold and impersonal but we still try to connect with our customers - we love it when people put comments in to their order about their preferences.  This can be anything ranging from something you couldn't find on our website but were wanting to order, or ok'ing substitutions, or just about anything you want us to know or answer.  (please don't ask us to explain nuclear fusion though, we are not rocket scientists) 

We also put a high priority on our staff and their needs.  This means that sometimes we are closed for extended holidays so that our people can travel and spend time with loved ones, or if the weather is bad and the roads are dangerous, we stay home.  We try to provide as much notice as possible when this happens.  Please always check our website FIRST for the most accurate information.  After that, we try to post an update in social media, and also we try to remember to update our google hours, oh and our phone system, the front door of the store, and anyplace else we can think of where people MIGHT look for information, but...well, there are so many these days.  Yesterday someone told us our hours are wrong on yelp....oops. 

OK, so if you're still with me and you are just looking for the answer to "how do I place an order."  Here you go - you can order on our website without logging in or creating an account or anything (but if you do, it will likely help out future you, and then future you can give past you a high five and just totally break the space time continuum, which could be fun...)  

***EDIT*** We actually now require you to login to place your order, but creating an account is easy.  

You can select pick up in store (if you live close or are driving through our flyover state of Kansas), or you can click ship/delivery.  (you can find out more about delivery options on our delivery page)  If you are within about 250 miles of us and you have met the weight minimum, you will see delivery service via our truck, otherwise you will see some variety of shipping options from USPS, UPS, FedEx, and possibly FedEx Freight.  For more on that, check our section on shipping.  You need to enter your complete address to get shipping rates (including your phone number).  THEN you need to enter your BILLING address, and that address has to match whatever is on file with your credit card company if you are paying by card (we also do PayPal and we're working on Venmo, and if we forget to update this little note once we have that set up, we may ALREADY support venmo.  depends on when you are reading this).  If you have any problems getting through checkout, you might visit the "help me" link that shows some commonly reported problems and their solutions.  OR, you can always call us or send a contact form.  Sometimes we even respond to contact forms in the evenings, but at some point, we all go to sleep....so if you are a midnight shopper, you may have to wait a bit for an answer.

You can also call us to place an order, but please don't ask what the shipping charge will be.  We don't know.  Our website has this fancy program that basically calls up the shipping company, puts all the details of your order in, and spits back out the rate.  Our brains don't have that call up program installed, so we have to wait until we pack it all up, weigh it, put in your address and then we know.  Sometimes we can guess, and we're usually close.  if you're good with that, (or if you are picking up) then ordering by phone may be a good choice.  You can also email in an order, or even send one in the US Mail.  We did, however, have to discontinue accepting orders by carrier pigeon, because they kept crashing into the glass windows and it's very messy. 

What happens after I place my order? 

CLICK HERE for specifics about pick up orders • CLICK HERE for specifics about shipments • CLICK HERE for specifics about delivery

First you will get an automated response from our website with a copy of your order via email. This lets you know your order has been received by our computers.  A live human being will then review your order.  We do this several times each day.  Once we have pulled down your order, and started to look at it, you will get an email through our order tracking system to let you know we are reviewing it.  This email may also include notes specific to your order in addition to general information.

How long does it take?

Well, that's one of the many "it depends" questions.  If you ordered a handful of tools and glazes and little stuff to ship out or pick up, we probably will have it ready in an hour or so once we look at it. (please don't hold us to that or we have to remove helpful information like this...you know the thing about the bad apples, right?  we like our honey crisps like we like our customers...sweet and worm-free...wait. that doesn't quite ...well anyway......

If you are getting a literal ton of clay but it's 3 boxes of this and 8 boxes of that, well, actually we're pretty quick with that too.  A lot of chemicals that need to be weighed out - that will take longer.  we may need 4 or 5 hours for a long list.  Not that it takes that long, but we are pretty serious about accuracy, so to ensure that, we make sure that we have an uninterrupted block of time to measure those out and double check our work.  

If your order has to ship freight, we need to get it early enough in the day to fully process it, build it AND have it shrink-wrapped and on the dock before about noon in order to have it picked up the same day...again, depending on how complicated it is, we often can do this lickety-split for you, but I would expect it to leave our building the next day.  

Deliveries are probably the biggest factor because we try HARD to fill the truck before we send it out - it's better for the environment and better for overall overhead which translates to better for your budge (lower delivery costs for you). More detail on that in our deliveries section.

Other factors include winter weather (many products can freeze and problems range from completely unusable after thawing to just inconvenient to no problem at all). You can read more details on our weather holds page (if this happens, you will also be informed via email that we are holding your order, and you do have the option to overrule our decision...you are in charge of that, we just provide advice), pre-ordering a product or ordering something that ships from the manufacturer - these are USUALLY (theoretically)  marked on the items themselves, and we try to give guidelines for lead-time), but sometimes those things are out of our hands because we're not processing them 

Here's a list of basic emails you will get during the process of placing and receiving your order. (You can reply to any of these emails you get and our whole staff will be able to see your response): 

We are preparing your order - we are starting to gather all of the items for your order

We have a question - something has come up that we need your input on 

Your order is ready for pickup -  For our local customers picking up their order, you will get an email when your order is ready for pickup along with instructions on where to pick up.  We'll also send you a friendly reminder if you miss your originally intended pick up day, or if your order has been here for about 2 weeks.  We just want to make sure you know.  :) 

-OR- Your order is waiting for the carrier to pick it up -If you live further away and are having it shipped, we will let you know when we have it all packed up and ready for the carrier.  (You should receive a separate email from the carrier with the tracking number so you can follow your package's progress on its way from us to you) 

-OR_ for deliveries: Your order is being scheduled for delivery//Your order is being finalized for delivery//Your order is being loaded for delivery - the first of these gives an estimate of when we hope to deliver, sometimes this email comes BEFORE we start pulling your order, sometimes after.  We deliver about 80% of orders in the original range given in this email.  After that, you will either get the email that we are finalizing your order (with the zeroed in delivery date) or you will get an email with a rescheduled date range.  Once you get that finalized for delivery email, you can expect the delivery to happen UNLESS something crazy happens alike a freak weather storm or an illness that strikes a large number of our staff.  In this case, you will get an email to let you know.  Lastly, once we are loading the truck for delivery, you will get that final email to let you know we are on the way and also what stop you will be (sometimes we are able to include this in the finalizing delivery email)