17 Glazes, One Kiln: How I Built a Production Glaze Library

Every potter has a shelf of glaze buckets. Most of us also have a graveyard of test tiles that went wrong — the pinholes, the crawling, the color that looked great on the test and terrible on a mug.

A while back I decided to stop winging it. I built a real production glaze library: 17 glaze combinations, tested, documented, and repeatable. Here's how, and why it changed the way I work.

Why I Needed It

When you're selling at art shows and taking custom B2B orders, "it came out a little different this time" isn't charming. It's a problem.

A coffee shop orders 48 mugs in a specific glaze. A brewery needs their mug club mugs to match the first batch. Customers at shows come back looking for "that blue one from last year." If I can't reproduce a glaze, I'm not running a business — I'm running a lottery.

I needed a set of glazes I could mix, apply, and fire the same way every time and get the same result. Not approximately. Actually.

Starting With the Base Glazes

I work in cone 6 dipping glazes — dry-mix glazes I buy in bulk and mix myself. Buying dry and mixing in the studio is cheaper at production scale and gives me control over consistency. Same recipe, same specific gravity, same result.

The library is built on layering. I didn't buy 17 separate glazes. I built up a collection of base glazes — your workhorses — and then developed combinations by layering them. Two glazes that are boring alone can be stunning together. That's where the magic is, and it's also where the risk is, because layering multiplies your variables.

The Testing Grind

Here's the unglamorous part: test tiles. Hundreds of them.

Every combination in the library started as a guess. I'd layer glaze A over glaze B on a test tile, fire it, and see what happened. Most of the time, what happened was ugly. Too dark. Muddy. Pinholes everywhere. One combo looked like a bruise. I'm not showing anyone that tile.

But the failures are the tuition. Each bad tile told me something — this base runs too much when layered, that combo needs a thinner application, this one only works on vertical surfaces. I kept notes on everything. Every tile got labeled: what went on, how thick, what cone, what kiln position.

Slowly, 17 combinations emerged that were beautiful and repeatable. That's the key — plenty of combos looked great once. I only kept the ones I could make look great every time.

What "Production" Actually Means

A production glaze isn't just pretty. It has to survive reality:

It has to fit the clay. If the glaze doesn't fit the clay body, you get crazing (that crackle pattern — pretty on purpose, a flaw when it's not). Every combo in the library is tested on my actual production clay, not just test tiles.

It has to apply the same way. Dipping is more consistent than brushing for production. Every combo has a defined application — dip times, layer order, drying between coats. I wrote it all down because future me won't remember.

It has to fire the same in a full kiln. Test tiles fire differently than a packed kiln. Heat work varies by position. I validated every combo in real production firings, not just test loads, before it earned a spot in the library.

The 17 Combos

I won't list every recipe here (some things stay in the studio), but the library spans the range: deep ocean blues and greens, warm earth tones, a couple of dramatic darks, clean whites and blacks, and a few wildcards that stop people at shows.

Each combo has a name, a recipe card, application notes, and a photo reference. When I sit down to glaze a production run, I'm not deciding — I'm executing. That sounds less romantic than "the muse strikes," but it's what lets me fill a 48-mug wholesale order and have every mug match.

What It Changed

The biggest change isn't the glazes. It's my brain.

Before the library, glazing day was stressful. Every piece was a small gamble. Now it's a system. I know what I'm mixing, how I'm applying it, and what's coming out of the kiln. That confidence lets me take bigger orders, promise consistency to B2B clients, and actually enjoy the glazing process instead of dreading it.

It also changed my show table. When every piece on the table represents a tested, named, repeatable glaze, customers feel it. They ask about the glazes by name. "Do you have anything in Tidepool?" That's when you know the library is working — not just for you, but for the people buying.

If You're Thinking About Building One

Start small. Pick your three best-selling glazes and develop two layered combos from each. Test on your actual clay, in your actual kiln, in real firing conditions. Document everything — you'll thank yourself in six months.

And accept that most of your tests will be ugly. That's not failure. That's the library being built.

---

I make every piece in my Ashland, Ohio studio and fire in my own kiln. You can see the glaze library in action in the shop — and if you're a potter working on your own glaze system, find me on Instagram @jessietylerceramics. I like talking about this stuff.