Advance Processes: Jason Nickson

ABAP is a second year module which is focussed on students exploring and testing a specific forge process and annotating, analysing and evaluating their findings in a technical journal.

Jason embarked on a very unusual area to investigate. He decided to work in the ceramics workshop and explored firing glazes onto steel. He tested both earthenware and stoneware glazes, he tracked the firing cycles to measure the impact of heat work and welded lots of small boxes to pour glaze into. Several kiln shelves were destroyed in his testing and I am not sure how these would be applied to products, however, it was a really interesting investigation and its clear Jason had lots of fun evaluating which glazes and which oxides would withstand fluxing with the metal and still keep some of their colour. Just look at the yellow one, wow!

Jason adds:

For Advanced Specialist Processes I have attempted to research and perfect ceramic glaze techniques on the surface of mild steel, which has led to some interesting results, including glaze specific crystalline oxide structures. With the Stoneware examples the metal has been heated to 1120’c, at this temperature the metal glows yellow and reacts with the oxygen in the kiln to produce a thick oxide that resembles lava or tiny brilliant but dark gems.

These glaze finishes are incredibly fragile due to their hardness but their surface captures and reflects light within a curious way which begs to be touched. I’d like to apply this in my future projects, but I may be force to wait due to their delicate nature.

Del