Just a bit of info here.
Ron is in the UK. For those of us in north America, the tablespoon Ron is using actually equals out to 1.20095 US tablespoons.
So anyone on the US side of the world may be getting there mixture wrong.
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Size of a tablespoon changes by country?
Never heard of this… I went with the standard metric (I thought) of 5ml for a teaspoon and 3 teaspoons to a tablespoon…or 15ml…
That is where I got the weight…
No refute to @RonClarke, but I’d prefer a weight ratio … allows me to make different size batches…
We know what water weighs, but it would be easy to weigh 100ml of PVA. We know the weight of 15cc of TiO2.
200ml won’t even touch the mixing blades of my handheld mixer…
So I guess, we need to weigh it…
Where is this calculator? Wonder what a teaspoon is…?
I couldn’t agree more
In my other time suck (Cooking & Baking), weight is much preferred over what can be subjective measures like teaspoon. tablespoon, etc. This is especially true in baking where ingredients work together to form dough or batter. Mis-measure one and you may be looking at TOTAL failure. (As a side note: Cooking is, to me, more about combining flavors. But I digress…)
Weight is the way to go.
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I have always used weight whenever possible. Volume measurements are so prone to error and misinterpretation. Here’s a link to a post I made back in August '22 on my findings regarding TiO2 bulk density.
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Well I never ever expected this thread to reach such proportions as it has to date. I set out to try and find a better way to etch glazed tiles and thanks to all you great people it would seem your combined contributions have made that achievable. The latest suggested method looks better than anything I have achieved, and I will now stand back and let you guys continue to discuss how to make best use of this new improved tile etching method. I thank all of you that have contributed to this thread, and for making it so successful. 
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Ron, you where the inspiration to all of this. Without your idea, we would still be sniffing toxic fumes.
I am going to put up a picture on my “new” thread with a tile that I have to say, is the first time I had a tile fail because it is to black.
That was a great link/file and I’ve stored it with slight additions like the volume measurements with recent corrections of a UK Tbs being 1.2US Tbs. But also the following for working with glass. I forgot were I got this data but it’s in the file so someone posted it.
| 20g of TiO2, and 100g of rubbing alcohol. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Used on Glass Method | ||||
| Ingredient | Amount | w/v | w/w | |
| rubbing alcohol | 94.3ml | 99.958g | 69.9% | 68.5% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 26ml | 20g | 14.0% | 13.7% |
| Total | 120.3ml | 120g |
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I think all of us prefer to you to stay involved with the effort…
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@RonClarke Most definitely! It was you that started this. If not for you we would still be sniffing acetone getting that paint (that didn’t work that well) off.
Agreed.
Can’t call this the Ron Clarke Method without it’s namesake.
Thanks Ron, for all you’ve done to open my eyes to possibilities.
Sometime ago one of you posted about too much power basting the titanium off the tile leaving a grey image rather than a nice black and white image. I have found just that when testing on scrap tiles where I have etched over previous etchings. Maybe acrilic paint is more transparent than PVA and accounts for the over burn. There will, I feel, never be a perfect method that works with everyone’s setup. We are dam close, now it’s just down to fine tuning to suit your personal requirement.
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Wouldn’t the conversion need to know the specific gravity of the item? Teaspoon of lead vs flour?
Wow. A little late for that comment. hahaha
Since it is Ron’s formula, I think it just needs to be converted to grams for dry measurement and ml for wet. After that, you can convert it to whatever you want or need. Grams and Milliliters is common no matter where you are located.
Even scientific, experimental and a lot of other companies in the States use these as their standard measurements.
My mother used tablespoon measurements all the time… with her it was scrapped off so it was level, but in most instances you got a heaping tablespoon full.
We know the science standard but it would be smart to say so much weight for dry ingredients and ml/cc for wet. Like most formulas.
@RonClarke mentioned it wasn’t the most precise measurement and he’s going to address that.
There are plenty of tables, but how you scoop it matters…
Shaken to fluff it up, 1 US tablespoon (level) of titanium dioxide is 10 grams.