If I write on greenware with a pencil:
(a) will the writing survive the firing?
(b) will it damage the greenware?
Same questions for bisque …
I’m not looking for an underglaze pen or graffito paper. This isn’t for artwork, it’s just to write something for test data. And it isn’t a piece I care about either - it’s just for a test firing. At this point the piece is bone dry, having been made several weeks ago.
Greenware…Survive? No. Damage? It might carve into it a wee bit, but no.
Bisque…survive? No, but one like a 9B with tons of graphite can leave a ghost behind sometimes. Not to any legible degree. For glaze tiles I just use a hi temp China marker. Damage? No. I frequently sketch out with a 4H on bisque and no issues in 10 years or ghosts
A fast, easy way to make notes on test pieces is to use a bit of oxide wash on a thin brush. I didn’t need a lot of info on this tile so I used my usual wash brush, pick a tiny one and you could knock out a pretty small text. You can also put this on the bottom of a piece, it won’t stick.
Oxide wash is on the left hand side of the glaze rack.
Trinity’s sells underglaze pencils. They had blue and black last week.
On line you may be able to locate a variety of colors.
Hi John 
There are Amaco underglaze pencils on Amazon for between $9-13 right now… They don’t work very well on greenware unless probably completely bone dry but they definitely work really well on bisqued…
I also just have one, if you want to borrow it?
Thanks so much. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to inconvenience you and I don’t know when I’ll be up there.
I have a hand-built piece that I want to fire so I can test a glaze (fix, actually). The piece is already broken but that won’t affect my glazing test. I want to write on it “already broken” so that the kiln crew doesn’t think they did something to it. So I’m just looking for something simple to mark it with.
hmm… well… I know for sure pencil lead burns off in the kiln… I don’t know of any other home remedies 
Maybe just take before and after pictures with labels?
I also have one of the underglaze pencils if you want me to leave it in your box or mine. If I need it I could it while up there then put it back until you’re done with it. I still need to get you that piece of cocobolo too.
Thanks. I’ll take you up on that offer.
