Fusing a panel that will later be used for slumping

The snowflakes from the Colour de Verre molds worked, although I hope that the next ones I make are even better.  I intend to
tack fuse these to small glass squares which I will later use for slumping.  So following the instructions which are linked to the
Colour de Verre  Delphi web site, I took two 3 and 3/4" squares of glass, one 3mm blue transparent and the other 2mm clear along with another, one 3 mm green and a 2 mm clear glass which I am fusing with the following firing schedule which I slightly altered:

400dph.......................................1250 degrees....................................Hold 30 min.
600dph.......................................1420 degrees....................................Hold 10 min.
FULL............................................900 degrees......................................Hold 60 min.
100 dph........................................300 degrees....................................off

The firing schedule that I altered had segment 1 heating at 300 dph until 1250 degrees and segment 2 also heating at 300 degrees, but I thought that would go too slowly through the devitrification phase, so I sped it up.  Otherwise all remains the same.

Tack fusing and slumping the snowflake on 3 and 3/4 inch squares

So I followed the colour de verre instructions for this project which included a 3 part firing plan, the first was a panel fuse in which I placed 2 unadorned pieces of glass on top of each other, the firing schedule for this is in previous blog.  The only change I did there was to ramp up the segment one to 400 degrees and ramp up segment 2 to 600 hundred degrees.  I also cool down the piece to 900 degrees instead of the 960 degrees suggested in directions

The second step was to tack fuse the snowflake to the glass.  In this step I ramped up 300 degrees in the first segment and took it to 1225, firing schedule was as follows:
300 dph..........................1225 degrees............................hold 30 mins.
400dph...........................1325 degrees............................hold 10 mins
Full ................................900 degrees..............................hold 1 hour
100dph...........................600 degrees...............................off

Tack fusing was successful, snowflakes retained all of their shape but lost some of the "snowy" look.  Could that be because more heat was used?

Finally I slumped the whole thing twice.  After the first one, I noticed some pulling on the sides, so I corrected that by lowering the heat slightly and holding longer.  The firing schedule I used for the second one, the green one is as follows:

300dph.............................1215 degrees......................hold 15 mins
Full ....................................900 degrees......................hold 60 mins
100dph...............................700 degrees......................hold 1 min
OFF

Colour de Verre

This is a new mold from the Colour de Verre glass which includes a 5 and a 6 point snowflake that should be filled with 5 to 9 grams of fine frit respectively.  This wont be easy to measure out but i will try.  In an attempt to not overdo I underdid, I think and the result was pretty but fragile and it broke.  So I am trying it a second time, this time carefully filling each space without overflowing on the top.  I also tried to mix blue with clear fine frit and I increased the firing schedule as follows:

300 dph..................................1280 degrees............................hold 10 mins
FULL.......................................900  degrees............................hold 30 mins OFF.

This is called the "Snowy" Casting schedule in opposed to the "Icy" casting schedule.  And now I just read that I should have increased the temperature by 15 degrees for COE 90 glass.  This will teach me to read all the directions in the future.

So it worked one, 5 point, one six point and neither has broken,  They are still very fragile, I am going to add then to sheets of glass, 3 3/4" by  3  3/4" square and then slump them.

christmas trees

Christmas trees are my next project.  I am using the following firing schedule taken from Gillian Hulse's  book, Kiln Formed Glass:

Tack Fuse Firing:

400 dph..........................1000 degrees.........................Hold 10 mins
600 dph..........................1420 degrees..........................Hold 5 mins
Full..................................900 degrees..........................Hold 1 hour
100 dph...........................700 degrees...........................hold 1 min
Full  ..................................70 degrees...........................off

I used 1 layer of 3mm green glass which I topped with 1 layer of 2mm clear glass, inserted high temperature hook in between the two layers.  On top I placed a few stringers along with green, blue, yellow and red millefiori.  Pictures of the finished product to follow.  So here it is.  I forgot to attach the pot at the bottom, but it still looks ok, and the tack fusing worked well