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I am looking for a golden-colored glaze for a Cone 6 red-clay (Laguna #90) sculpture. I'd like something that has variations in color and doesn't look like metallic gold, but more like something alive. I'm open to commercial glazes, as well as recipes. The glaze will be brushed on, not dipped. If anyone has had any experience with something along these lines, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks!

Does anyone have any experience with either or both of these types of underglaze pens? I would like to try some, and I'm curious about other people's experience with them. Thanks!

I have a manual Skutt kiln and just installed a pyrometer and used it for the first time for a bisque firing--mainly out of curiosity, just to see what my kiln is doing and make sure it is doing what it is supposed to be doing (I'll be more concerned with glaze firings, as I'm just starting to make my own glazes; so far, with commercial glazes, everything has been firing just fine). Problem is, I can't figure out, looking at what I recorded, what it means. I used 03, 04, and 05 cones, with an 03 junior cone in the kiln-sitter (my kiln seems to want a kiln-sitter one one cone higher than my goal of ^04 for bisque and ^6 for glaze). I follow the Skutt manual firing schedule: approx. 3 hours on low, approx. 3 hours on medium, then shut the lid all the way and turn the switches to high until the kiln shuts itself off. This time I tried to remember to run out hourly (I was only partly successful in terms of regularity!) to check the pyrometer. Here are my results:

10:30am: turn kiln on low
11:20am: 230 degrees F
12:40pm: 411 degrees F
1:45pm: turn kiln to medium, temp 507 degrees F
2:45pm: 730 degrees F
3:40pm: 857 degrees F
5:00pm: turn kiln to high (lost track of time!), temp 990 degrees F
6:10pm: 1762 degrees F
6:38pm: 1911 degrees F
Looks like the kiln shut off at about 6:45, but I wasn't there to check the temp
7:01pm: kiln off, temp 1838 degrees F
7:31pm: 1576 degrees F
8:00pm: 1372 degrees F
8:30pm: 1199 degrees F
9:00pm: 1058 degrees F
9:30pm: 932 degrees F
After which I got tired and decided to stop checking.

I'm wondering if someone can decipher all this for me. Is that seemingly slow rise to a sudden jump in speed to high normal? Will that cooling rate be too fast for a good glaze firing (though it will likely be different when it starts cooling from the much higher ^6 temps.

Just trying to understand. Any help will be welcome! Thanks!

I've been using Standard 182, which I like. I might be able to get Laguna clay more locally now, but not Standard, so I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for a Laguna clay that is similar to 182. I've used #65 and like it for throwing, but it doesn't hold up well with handbuilding; I've used #66, which is better for handbuilding, but I don't like the sand in it for throwing. Any other suggestions would be appreciated!