Petal Mold

I slumped the Petal dish mold with the following schedule :

300 dph................................................1200 degrees....................hold 30 mins
300 dph.................................................1225 degrees...................hold 1 1/2 hours
Full........................................................ 900 degrees....................hold 1 hour
100 dph...................................................700 degrees.......................off

SCALLOP SLUMP MOLD

I love how this came out, and will do another.  This time instead of fusing the panel first and then full fusing it I am going to fire it all at one time.  Using 2 circles of 3mm white glass, the question here is how white glass will do covered with pieces of 3mm colored glass for the petals, and circle in the middle of the flower.   I will use the full fuse firing schedule as follows:

400dph...........................1225 degrees.......................hold 1 hour
600dph............................1470 degrees......................hold 10 mins
Full..................................900 degrees........................hold 1 hour
100dph.............................700 degrees.......................off

This is showing some artistry with the cutting of glass and use of the grinder as well as placement and design.  This also has 2 1/2 layers instead of 2 layers and I shall see if the thicker piece works the same.

Lessons Learned:

I like this better on thinner glass so I liked this better when I put a 2mm thin clear on top of a 3mm clear to make 5 mm worth of glass.  So next I will try using a piece of 4mm clear glass which I will cover with petals etc.  I did not like adding the additional yellow pieces .  also I like adding the center circular piece so it sits over the petals, so the center appears fully round and not cut off by the petal.  I wonder how it might work if I used a 4mm piece of glass, if I do think this I will have to account for it in the firing schedule.  Should I try a full process temperature of 1460, not 1470 degrees.

SMALL SCALLOP MOLD CONTINUED 2

I fired my panel first and now I am adding several pieces to it and will full fuse it again but try to keep it a lower processing temperature.  I am trying the following:

400dph...............................1225degrees..............................hold 1 hour
600dph................................1450degrees.............................hold 10 mins
Full.......................................900degrees..............................hold 1 hour
100dph..................................700degrees..............................0ff


Next small scallop mold project will combine bullseye 1140-0030 aventurine blue with bullseye 0126-0030











I am using the spring green as the base with aventurine blue as the petals and an amber circle in center.  The overall base for the piece is clear.  I am currently firing it at full fuse as follows:

400dph...........................1225 degrees.......................1 hour
600dph...........................1470 degrees........................10 mins
Full...................................900 degrees..........................1 hour
100dph.............................700 degrees...........................off

SUN CATCHER

I definitely have ADHD or so I think, because I like to switch between at least 2 projects at one time.  This way I can let one glass project cool properly while working on the next or at least think about the next.  So here I am with a sun catcher.  I had remnants of an emerald green fractured irid glass which I used on the spiral pattern fuser.  The glass looks pretty and looks especially nice when slumped over the pattern fuser.  But I did not have enough to do another one of that so I turned it into a sun catcher instead.  I just fired two panels to be included in the suncatcher with the irid glass on top and clear glass as a base.  In order to create the two panels I fired the pieces using the panel firing schedule for a project listed on Coleur de Verre web site.  It seems to work quite well when fusing two pieces of 3mm glass together:

Panel Firing Schedule:

300 dph................................1250 degrees.................hold 30 mins
300 dph................................1420 degrees.................hold 10 mins
Full.........................................900 degrees.................hold 1 hour
100 dph...................................600 degrees.................off

Next I am creating 2 decorative pieces with clear base and am putting scraps of the emerald green fractured irid on top and tack fusing them, I hope, with this schedule:

Tack Fusing Schedule

400 dph...............................1000 degrees.....................hold 10 mins
600 dph................................1350 degrees.....................hold 5 mins
Full........................................900 degrees......................hold 1 hour
100 dph.................................700 degrees.......................off

So hopefully this firing schedule will leave some texture on the two clear pieces.  That is what I am hoping to achieve and latel I have not been able to and all my pieces full fuse.

Took a break and dont know whether or not I actually did this piece.  So instead I am working on a flower on a panel of transparent glass, one layer that can be hung outside or perhaps in a window.  Maybe I will get a chain to hang it with after drilling two holes or using bales.  And maybe next time I do this I can try curving the stringers first.

I am firing the above with following firing schedule:

400 dph............................1000 degrees................hold 10 mins
600 dph.............................1400 degrees................hold 5 mins
Full......................................900 degrees...............hold 1 hour
100 dph................................700 degrees...............-0-
off

The firing schedule worked.  It tack fused the flower to the base and did not distort the one layer of glass underneath.  I did wind up using and irid piece of glass with the irid side down and I also used yellow striker glass that turned warm orange.   All are mistakes that don't seem so bad.

 The color it turned is not so bad, warm orange.  I should really start noting the colors that I use.
The guy at the gift shop on main street in Damariscotta really liked the glass so I would like to get so more irid and make a couple more of those plates.

Fiber paper molds

I really like the glass artist who make their own molds and mold natural or found figures in glass, but from all of the reading that I am doing it appears that I am not quite ready to start making my own molds, I am not even ready to understand how it is done.  So for now I will work with other methods, using other people's molds, beautiful as many of them are and today I tried to create texture or a pattern in my glass with cut out shapes.

I had traced the leaves of flowers and cut them in fiber paper.  This paper may have already been used in a firing project but it cut easy enough with some crumbling of the paper.  I think I may have already fired something with this piece and that is why it so easily crumbled but then lets see what happens.  I put it together underneath  layers of glass and used the following firing schedule which I labeled as the schedule for the cherry blossom and Net leaf vein molds.  Lets see how that comes out.  It goes as follows:
300 dph.............................................1360 degrees........................hold 20 mins
300 dph.............................................1445 degrees........................hold 10 mins
Full......................................................900 degrees.......................hold 1 hour
100 dph..................................................700 degrees......................-0-

off
Well that works but I have also added a first step that I believe is a bubble squeeze which allows me to fuse two layers of glass over the fiber paper and also fire them together in one step.  And that seems to have worked  What I have determined is the finished piece is only as nice as the cut out fiber paper is and I do have to work at getting that better.  Finding better simpler drawings that use the space of the glass piece better.  I still think that this project can work.  See here the results of the first try, using cut out circles.  I need to place those elements in a more artistic matter and use something other that clear glass.  Maybe i can also fill them with frit.

In this example I overlapped the circles, maybe I could do more and space them differently.

So here is I tree I traced and then fired, not bad but not great.  Would it look better in a different color glass or if someone with artistic ability had traced the tree?  My next attempt is a celtic symbol which I am fusing into a 2 layered piece I fused years ago.  This piece has a third layer of fishes and other decorative pieces fused into it.  We will see how this effects the whole thing.

And finally what have I learned.   What comes out on the glass all has to do with  how good the fiber paper mold looks and also particularly how it is placed on the glass.  The next one I will try is going to be multiple shapes placed through out the glass.  I think I like more shape then less so basically fill the whole space like the spiral fuser I have from Coleur de Verre.  This is how my celtic symbol experiment came out.

And this is how I fired it:

300 dph..............................1250 degrees................hold 10 mins
300 dph..............................1445 degrees................hold 10 mins
Full.......................................900 degrees................hold 1 hour
100 dph.................................700 degrees................off

Again I wonder how this would look with different colored glass with a smaller pattern that is repeated; with a more realistic pattern etc..................... 



so this is more of what I want to do, wonderful blue glass and the leaves themselves are out so that the way to do that is to trace a leaf on tracing paper and cut it out.  Place paper below the glass and when glass melts it will do so into the space left from the cut out leaf.  So based on this beautiful piece which I did not do, I am going to try again.  Looking for a page of various leaves or what ever and trace them.
So, I am going to slump this fiber paper circles onto the scallop slump mold.
And see how it all comes out.  the question is whether I need to cut the curved top outer edges, out of the glass before putting it on the mold. And also to see if the slumping firing schedule I am using for the scallop mold works:

300 dph.............................1200 degrees...................hold 30 mins
300 dph..............................1225 degrees...................hold 1 hour
Full.....................................900 degrees.....................hold 1 hour
100 dph...............................700 degrees....................off

    Now lets see if this advances one more space or it stays above the last picture.  I did slump the circular piece and it looks like this now.

That came out beautifully.  i want to do a few more

Fiber blanket mold.

So i made a 6 1/4 by 6 1/4 inch panel of transparent blue and transparent aqua fractured irid and then, as is my wont, I placed it in the kiln over a loosely assembled fiber blanket propped up by kiln furniture and then set the following firing schedule:

300dph........................1220 degrees.......................hold 1 hour 15 mins
full.................................900 degrees......................hold 1 hour
100 dph..........................700 degrees......................off

Still hot in there, haven't taken it out yet, but I can see there are some bumpy issues on the bottom.  Next time will have to be sure to smooth out the bottom better and also work on a better shape or design for the blanket.

A lot of issues, misshapen and not in a good way.  There edge where I fused two pieces together was missing a chip and that seems to have been agravated by the full fuse

I cut this out of the fiber blanket and most of the petals are well shaped but not the bottom one.  I also raised the fiber blanket mold on some kiln furniture and used the same firing schedule as above.  Used a piece of glass that I had fused several years ago.

SMALL SOAP DISH SLUMPER MOLD and small PETAL MOLDS

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.