Striking

As if crystal glazing weren't complicated enough.Two [more] techniques I learned from the wizards of the crystal glaze forum [see links]: silver nitrate and rare earths [neodymium] as colourants in the base glaze,followed by striking- refiring the pots to lustre temperature [720 deg.C],which,for reasons unclear,causes a change in colour,as in picture [probably above]:left is before striking.
The pots are truncated due to Picasa's way of dealing with vertical shots,and my failure to take this into account,but you get the idea.Incidentally,I read on the net that 'rare earths' are not particularly rare.Just expensive.I don't think that I shall be making a habit of using these materials,but it was fun raising eyebrows at the chemical supply company when I asked for the rare earths [I have a smidgeon of praseodymium as well,but they wouldn't give me any uranium].Also,after failing totally to understand the subject at school,it is satisfying to find myself 40 years later on the wilder shores of chemistry.