- Triaxial blending chart
Blends are the easiest way to quickly create a large number of tests by mixing batches of only 2-4 "corner" recipes. Clay and gloop tests are often blended by weight, while glaze tests usually use volumetric blending. Ian Currie popularized volumetric blending with his "Currie Grids". For National Clay Week I released a Volumetric Blending Tutorial that you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AbGCEYIiwY
Blending the correct amounts of each "corner" recipe to make intermediate recipes can be confusing. So, years ago I created a simple reference chart that shows the correct amounts to blend for various types of line, triaxial, and biaxial tests.
Today I am releasing a newly revised version of this chart for triaxial blends. The chart shows blending amounts for various sizes of triaxials and is based on small sample sizes of 20-24 grams or milliliters (for weight or volumetric blending).
The poster is 20" x 16" (51cm x 41cm) and printed on thick and durable matte, museum-quality paper. It's a great addition to any glaze lab!
This poster is available on Etsy for $25 here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/761761178/glazy-triaxial-blending-chartThe printer's cost for each poster is $12. So each purchase contributes about $10 after taxes to help pay for Glazy's servers and continued development. Glazy Patreon Patrons can buy this poster for $15 (40% off)
In the future I will release more tutorials about how to take advantage of blend testing. In the meantime, if you have questions about how to make blend tests or how to use the chart, please comment here!
Hi D. Love your poster 😍 It's perfect for my studio but too advanced for the communal studio. Do you know of any other educational clay poster? Fx classic pot shapes, mug shapes, step-by-step throwing? To inspire a lot of beginners?
I just used chart 4 to test blending cobalt, rutil an Cu on 2 different clays. I’m waiting for the result... oven still working
You can also use the chart to blend by weight instead of volume. Useful for blending clays & slips. For this triaxial I've made three 500g batches of clay, adding 200g of water to each. For this test batch I weighed out 20g top, 10g left and 10g right.
Here is the finished triaxial, with test batches drying on plaster.
I've never thought of using a triaxial to blend clays. Great idea! Thanks.
Hi! Thanks Derek for this and other charts I've found in your website, they're of big help, nicely designed and easy to read!
I want to create a 51 row triaxial or bigger to make clay mixes, as I've been having so many troubles with the recipe I use at my workshop... so I want to plot a big map of the posible mixes, and then slowly focus on "zones of interest", as you did for the "teadust" glaze. the thing is that I haven't found a computer software that would process all the numbers for me, and the idea of doing it by hand discourages me... do you have any suggestion of a software or shortcut that could help me draw a thousand blend triangle?? thanks a lot!
( I added a picture of my clay, just beacuse the site won't let me post the comment without a pic :S )
vadim strika Glazy patrons can use the Glazy Calculator to make blends, but it is limited to only a few rows. Personally I'm not sure if a blend with thousands of tests is worthwhile, perhaps better to make smaller blends, but with the corner points spread farther apart, and then "zoom in" on areas you think are interesting. For example, Currie Grids only have 35 blends, but they explore a large area of the silica:alumina map.
Btw you can post a comment without uploading a photo :)
Thanks Derek for your quick answer. I had seen the currie grid before, but completely forgot about its existence... Now I'm trying to figure out how to make it work for a clay research. I've found that Ian Currie himself has a calculator on his website, but it has the silica and alumina values already set (if 'Im really getting this :S )... I'm trying to twist it around to fit my purpose but maybe I should use another method for clay testing :/
I don't understand what you mean by " the corner points spread further apart", could you explain?