I have what I am pretty sure is a soap dish slump mold.
There it is and I have tried to cut glass out the same shape but cannot do it or at least cannot do it yet. Perhaps after some practice, but that wastes a lot of glass so I have decided to fill it with frit instead and see what comes of that. Here are some previous examples, one using handmade frit and the other using frit and pieces of glass.
I like the one made with clear frit mixed with other colors and the frit is not fine, it is at least medium so I can see little balls in the "cast leaf". Although the mold is in the shape of a leaf, it is also a soap dish so it is plenty deep and not a delicate cast glass piece. But I am trying to make it that way and fired it as a thin cast piece using the following schedule:
300 dph......................................1375 - 1400 degrees.....................hold 10 mins
I used 1375 degrees processing temperature, because it is good to fire it low at least to begin with.
Full...............................................900 degrees.............................hold 30 mins
Off
I would like to do more castings and will work with the several molds that I have. Bullseye makes a frit and glass that is especially good for casting. It is in the 1800 number series. I used Spruce Green medium frit 0184-002-F with some blue fine frit and some black opal fine frit 00100-000. Lets see how this works out as a cast work and not as a slumped piece.
This is pretty but technically speaking I did not put enough glass in the green lines. so there are some spaces and it is mixed with fine black frit which I added because I thought I could use it to outline the lines on the bottom of the soap dish. I will have to look out for the fill weight and to smooth it out on the top surface. This one is bumpy. The spruce green was medium frit and that heats differently then the fine which heats and fills the space better. So I want to use either all fine frit or all medium frit not the two placed on either side of each other. Am going to try to make more frit. Now that I have read that after making your own frit, and cleaning it with a rare earth marble, you should sift it and take perhaps the medium pieces on up and try and sift the bad black pieces of metal out. I will do that with clear and mix it with some medium frit that I have and try that next.
I have learned not to guess at the amount of glass needed to fit a mold. In my latest try after this one above I was reminded not to put additions too close to the side, edge, of the glass. So the experiments go on. The firing schedule did work
300 dph.........................................1445 degrees.....................hold 10 mins
off.
But mostly it worked for the fine casting frit that I used in the small flower mold I got from Slumpys.
I also wanted to see how the combination of the clear frit I made along with the black dichroic frit I added worked. I dont think it worked so well. Will mix the clear frit with something else in the future. The blue petals looked nice and I might try to turn those into a sun catcher.
Making more I will use the following schedule:
300 dph..................................................1420 degrees................hold 5 mins for fine frit; 10 mins for medium frit
Full.........................................................900 degrees.................hold 1 hours
off
Next I will try to slump a piece of glass that I just made by doing a pot melt.
