Digitalfire.com Is Shutting Down What Potters Need to Know

If you’ve spent any real time researching glaze chemistry, clay bodies, or firing schedules, you’ve almost certainly landed on Digitalfire.com at some point. For nearly four decades, the site has been one of the most trusted free resources in ceramics — and it’s now set to shut down on June 26.
What’s happening
Digitalfire was built and maintained by Tony Hansen, a potter, researcher, and programmer who has run the site for roughly 36 years. What started as a monthly newsletter eventually grew into a massive online database — thousands of pages covering glaze recipes, raw material breakdowns, and clay-to-glaze fit, all freely accessible to the ceramics community.
According to Hansen, the shutdown stems from a Terms and Conditions issue tied to Insight-Live.com, the platform from which much of Digitalfire’s source material was originally built. He has said he no longer has the authority to grant the exemption needed to keep that material published, and that resolving it through other means is beyond what he can manage given the size and complexity the site has grown into.
What’s being done
Two potters, with Hansen’s knowledge and approval, have launched a GoFundMe to help fund the technical support needed to save or migrate the site’s content before the shutdown. Given that Digitalfire reportedly spans thousands of interlinked pages, this isn’t a simple backup job — it requires real technical work under a tight deadline.
What you can do
∙ If you rely on Digitalfire for reference material, consider downloading or archiving pages you use regularly before June 26.
∙ The Internet Archive has reportedly been capturing the site, so historical access may not disappear entirely even after the live site goes down.
∙ If you want to support the effort, the GoFundMe set up by the community is one direct way to help fund the migration work.
Digitalfire has quietly supported generations of potters figuring out glaze chemistry on their own. Whatever the outcome, it’s worth taking a moment to back up what you can — and to appreciate how much free, hard-won knowledge one person built and shared for free over 36 years. Shop your pottery needs at https://thekilnshop.com/