Lawrence It must be ten years ago that I put fingers to key board outlining my thoughts on Matrix. It is about time to offer some feed back on how I am currently utilizing its features in 2008. I thought I might outline how Matrix works for me to provide greater clarity while designing, testing, adjusting and storing glaze files. As I re-read my thoughts outlined above regarding Matrix I can confirm that they still ring true to this day. I should ad that I am still finding new features within the application to play with which make testing more pleasurable. And I am still recommending it to all who show an interest in understanding glazes via unity formula.

My personal preference is a Mac operating system and that is what I purchase for my own personal use. When the Mac version was discontinued and Matrix was only available on Windows I sourced a windows lap top just to run it. That says something. Now the recent Macs can run windows I will only need one lap top rather than two the next time I up-grade. Let me say I am looking forward to that day.

My teaching and consulting work has me playing with hundreds of glazes a year. As long as I have accurate raw material analysis available it is possible to duplicate and modify successful recipes anywhere in the world.

With so many projects running concurrently good records are essential to an efficient work path. I utilize the text editor in the Matrix drop down menu to outline what it is I am trying to do with a test and then how I react based on the results of that test. This is attached to the glaze in question. A clear history unfolds and I find this essential to keeping a clear direction.

Attaching JPEG images to any successful recipe is becoming increasingly addictive. This is especially useful with students. It is hard to get an accurate true likeness due to my average camera skills but the images that are there speak more clearly than the name “Flambe No 2”.

The “Calculate Flux Factor” available through the “Recipe to Formula” drop down menu is also providing me with a clearer understanding of the choices I have made while comparing glazes and adjusting melt. Although you comment that they be used with ones eyes open as far as their accuracy goes, they are none the less proving to be pretty close to the mark with my tests. I am finding the “Lengersdorff Flux factors” a valuable and exciting new tool. I would love to see this value come up for each glaze just as the Alumina Silica ratio, surface tension and expansion do.

The blends area has always been essential to me and was one of the original draw cards that had me swap over to Matrix from other applications. The “5 x 7 Recipe Grids” button at the bottom of the Blends tab is a wonder. In the past I had to create the four corners myself if I wanted to circle a glaze to explore alumina silica roles Ian Currie style. Being able to load up an existing glaze and have Matrix scatter 35 glazes around it with the click of a few buttons is really spectacular.

Increasingly I am finding Matrix recipe database facilities essential to seeing the patterns that develop within a family of glazes. To clarify this, take for example an oil spot Tenmoku. Collect as many recipes as you like and create an oil spot database from the Matrix drop down menu “Make New Recipe Database” Save the recipes to it and then view them on one of the graphs. I imagine John Britt used this feature as he developed his wonderful book”The Complete Guide to High Fire Glazes. I’m finding this a fantastic tool.

I find myself constantly comparing recipes. For example why is one glaze showing some quality that another does not. The “Recipe 2” button in the “Recipe to Formula” environment allows the recipes and formulae to be displayed side by side and also on the graphs. This helps me make comparisons and decide direction.

You asked me whether I had a wish list for Matrix. I must say that it is just about all I could wish for in its existing form, I am very satisfied with all that Matrix can do to expand my understanding of the nature of glazes, and also what it can do help me to store that information.

Finally the help menu is essential to anyone working with Matrix, it is not only comprehensive but concise.

Chris James - 2008

The following is an extract from

Rick Malmgren - "A Look at Glaze Calculation Software"  Ceramics Monthly June 1998

Matrix (Windows / NT or Macintosh)

Matrix is a powerful and superbly simple program - point and click all the way.  Its author, Lawrence Ewing is a lecturer in the ceramics section of the Otago Polytechnic School of Art in Dunedin New Zealand.  He developed the the program to teach students the basics of glaze chemistry, and it serves that purpose beautifully.

Graphs of limit formulas, surface tension and thermal expansion help anyone learning about glazes to understand the relationship among the major ceramic oxides.  Recipes are converted into underlying formulas instantly and present on-screen comparisons with standard formula range.   Matrix also simplifies the process of using line blends, triaxial blends and quadraxial blends, showing the recipes, analyses and graphs at all of the test points.

Calculations from a target formula back to the recipe are very smooth, making Matrix one of the best programs for this difficult calculation.  Glazes are quick to describe and find, using the special simple drop-down lists in the database window.  New features added to the Windows version allow the linking of an image file along with extensive text notes to a recipe.  It is just like having a test tile right their on screen.......">

Rick Malmgren - "A Look at Glaze Calculation Software"  Ceramics Monthly June 1998

The following are extracts from postings to the ClayArt listservfrom:

The late David Hewitt

" In my view Matrix is the clearest screen interface to understand and use for both recipe to formula and formula to recipe. It has the widest range of displays and in particular the % Analysis Triaxial Graph for comparing recipes.

I can confirm the ease with which MATRIX can carry out the blending exercise. It is also a very easy program to use for straight forward analysis and creating recipes from an analysis. 

Also a recent addition to MATRIX enables a glaze to be analysed into % Mol Parts,- Basic, Amphoteric and Acidic - and to see these plotted on a triaxial Phase Equilibrium Diagram together with the eutectic lines for the main oxides. As far as I know this is the only Glaze Program that can do this.

Those of you who recently followed the thread on colouring oxides reducing crazing and the use of Appen's coefficients for colouring oxides, may also be interested to know that Matrix includes Appen's figures and that you can switch from one set of coefficients at will to suit your inclinations on these coefficients.

5th April 1999

... To my mind Matrix is clearly the best glaze program on the market. Not just because it includes my favourite way of looking at glazes, but also because of its ease of use and the versatility in changing from one set of limit formula or one set of oxide expansion coefficients etc..

14th March 1999

David Hewitt
David Hewitt Pottery ,
7 Fairfield Road, Caerleon, Newport,
South Wales, NP6 1DQ, UK. Tel:- +44 (0) 1633 420647
FAX:- +44 (0) 870 1617274
IMC Web site http://digitalfire.com/education/people/hewitt.htm

Daniel Bende

" First of all I use Matrix to analyze glaze recipes I pick up from books, magazines, the Internet or from fellow potters. Because of the extensive list of materials most recipes I can easily transform the recipe (from where ever it came) into the Segerformula. After that I try to analyze the specific properties and try to understand what mechanism triggers the specific effects (for instance low Al2O3, High PbO and KNaO2 in aventurine glazes).

The Matrix limits and the Al2O3/SiO2 graph are a great help to instantly give me some idea about the usefulness of a glaze recipe. After this first screening (and a lot of glazes don't pass this first round) I can look deeper into the glaze properties, for instance the expansion and surface tention to give me some idea about possible crazing and/or crawling. New for me was the view of the eutectics of certain fluxoxides with Al2O3 and SiO2. This gives me some idea how to lower the melting range by either increase the amount of fluxing oxides or if the graph indicates it just the opposite and decrease the fluxing oxides.

Because I life in Holland I mostly can't get the materials in the recipes I find (with mostly American raw materials). With the help of the transformation from recipe to Segerformula I can translate that Seger formula back to a recipe with materials I can (cheaply) get. And after some testing voila I have my own recipe.

As you know I would like more tools to analyze glazes, especially calculation of the melting range and viscosity, preferable in some sort of graph, like the % molecular parts triaxial graph. Of course I already calculate these factors in a spreadsheet with the help of the calculated Seger formula in Matrix, but I would to do this in Matrix and maybe learn more about other theoretical property calculations.

Secondly I plot my glaze-experiments mostly to quadraxial blends, with two variables SiO2 and Al2O3. The corner glazes I make by theoretically designing the desired Segerformule and than look for the desired (and available!) raw materials. With the help of Matrix its fast and easy for me to make recipes which comes close to the theoretical Segerformulas. After all that theory of course comes the reality; the actual weighing and blending of all the raw materials and of course the ultimate test: the fire.The sheets of the matrix blend page give some help with that and thought me how to use the volumetric blending method (together with the help of the Ian Currie books). I especially like the quadraxial blends because they give me simple understandable results. That's the way I create in a swift way desired (base) glazes.

Thirdly Matrix helps me to store my hard earned glaze recipes with my comments (very important). Every time I look for a specific glaze I look through the pictures and swiftly print the recipe with the Matrix text editor in the amount I wish. This is a very useful feature; with the printed recipe in the desired amount, I can weigh each material without making some dome calculating error which destroys the glaze batch (or even the pots if I don't discover the error on time).

Last but not least I like to print my raw materials when I go to the store, with the shopping list. Then I (hopefully) don't go home without that essential something that puts me again a day behind, because I can't make my glaze recipe.

Daniel Bende dfbende@dds.nl

Nath Viswanath - Fusion Frits

"I have been using the matrix programm with big satisfaction and also being used by our R&D staffs."

Nath Viswanath ViswanathNath@aol.com

Ababi Sharon - Israel

"I use mostly Matrix. When I build a new recipe as well as when I want to compare and change mainly one material in the recipe. Now, when I have finished Mike Bailey's ^6 glaze book, I understand better the surface tension+colorant oxides influence on the glaze.

I like the graphics. They are very clear and reliable! Also the ability to change and compare ideas of limits, made by different sources as well as the easy possibility to make one myself.

Matrix is a great, yes I have said it before, because I worked with Insight, there are two things that are more comfortable for me in Tony Hansen's program. One I have told you the possibility to copy a recipe from a letter or site into the program and the second, to convert a whole recipe.

I always start with matrix, but when I am stuck I move to Insight, especially converting formula to recipe. Might take the time, learn to do it in Matrix and will change my mind. It is not looking for the materials, I know what they are made of, but- probably must learn "

Ababi Sharon