How to Track Glazes and Surfaces in Claybook
Glaze memory fails on a delay. Unload day feels obvious. Two months later, “the soft blue over speckled brown” is a riddle.
Claybook treats glazes as surfaces you save once, then attach to each pot as a dated application log. That is how a studio bucket becomes a recipe you can search.
For the wider tracking debate (notebook vs spreadsheet vs app), see The Best Ways to Track Your Pottery Glaze Results.
First: save the surfaces you actually use
Open Crafts, then the Surfaces tab. Add each glaze, slip, underglaze, oxide, or stain you reach for.
On a surface record you can store:
- Name (use the bucket label, not a mood)
- Type: glaze, underglaze, slip, oxide, stain, or other
- Cone
- Color swatches so the list is scannable
- Notes: mixing quirks, “settles fast,” “crawls if thick”
Do this for the six glazes you live in, not the whole wall. You can add more the first time you dip something new.
Then: log the stack on the pot
Open the craft, find Surfaces, and add a log for each layer.
For every layer, record:
- Which surface
- Application method: brush, dip, pour, sponge, spray, flood, or other
- Date
- Notes: seconds of dip, number of coats, overlap zone, wax, wipe-back
Order matters. Log the inside pour first if that is how you work, then the exterior dip. Future you is reconstructing a sequence, not a vibe.
Save. The same surface can appear on a hundred pots without retyping the recipe.
A glaze-day workflow that survives wet hands
- Before you dip, open the craft (or clone the set)
- Add the planned stack while the buckets are in front of you
- Glaze the pot
- Fix the log if you changed the plan (“skipped second coat”)
- After the fire, add a Finished step and a result photo on the same record
Do not wait until unload to remember dip times. That is how every mug becomes “I think it was two seconds.”
Test tiles belong in the same system
Make tiles, then log them as crafts with the same surface logs as real pots.
Name the tile after the stack: B-mix / tenmoku / satin white rim. Filter the library by surface when you are choosing a combo for a commission.
Tile-making basics: How to Make and Use Glaze Test Tiles Effectively. Reading them: Reading What a Test Tile Tells You.
Find every pot that used a glaze
On the Crafts tab, open filters and choose Surface. Pick the glaze. You get the tiles and the finished work that used it.
That is the payoff. A notebook cannot do this unless you kept an index.
More filters: How to Search and Filter Your Pottery Library.
What not to do
- Naming a surface “blue.” There are seven blues on the shelf
- Logging one surface called “combo” instead of two layers
- Skipping method and thickness, then wondering why the remake is thin
- Keeping glaze notes in the craft’s general Notes field so they never filter
Surfaces are the library. Surface logs are the application. Notes on the craft are for everything else.
Takeaway
Save the bucket once. Attach it to the pot on glaze day with method and thickness. Photograph the result on the same record. The next time someone asks for “that mug,” you search the glaze instead of guessing.