Flux Triaxial - MgO, BaO, Li2O

By now your flux triaxial will have been fired and you will be laying it out to pondering on the meaning of the variations that your fired blend displays..

In this lesson I thought we could discuss the manner in which this triaxial, and others from the previous lesson, could be interpreted in terrns of the theoretical structure of the blend.

Flux triaxials are a broad brush look at what might result from combining three secondary flux oxides in the recipe in which the Al2O3 and SiO2 are held constant across the blend.

Theoretically we are told that the flux oxides can have an effect on the texture, fluidity and the colour response of a glaze. In these blends we should get some insight into just how these qualities are effected in glazes that have constant Al2O3 and SiO2 levels.

I have selected a 15 sample flux triaxial done by a past students for the purposes of developing a strategy for interpreting results. You will be able to apply this strategy to the interpretation of your flux blend(s).

In this lesson we will:

• study a flux blend involving the secondary fluxes MgO, BaO and Li2O
• develop a method for identifying its particular characteristics
• recording results of our observations.