SOAP DISH MOLD OCTOBER 2014

I filled this mold with fine frit green mixed with tangerine etc and am currently firing it with the following schedule.  Wasnt sure  exactly how to use the mold.  Is it a slumping mold?   Or can I put scraps of glass in it and fuse?  Can I do both?  If I use it as a slump mold how do I take advantage of the two points of the leaf on the left and right of the picture?  Am I suppose to cut the glass to fit over that.  Cutting the glass to reflect the two points would be hard?  So is this a casting mold?  If so then it requires a lot of frit and I was unsure of that.  But I used it as a casting mold and filled it with fine frit of a mixture of colors and fired it as follows:

300dph..................................................1375 degrees................................10 min
Full..........................................................900 degrees.................................1 hour
100 dph....................................................700 degrees.................................off

Let's see how that works.  I understand that firing it low is best because you can always fire it again.  When firing I have also cleaned out my snowflake mold and will spray that with another layer of MR97 and fill it to fire tomorrow. 

That came out okay, two bubbles on the bottom side that set on the mold, and a few rough spot along the edges which maybe could have been taken care of or will be taken care of by fire polishing.  I will try it again but perhaps with glass to slump over.  

SMALL SNOW FLAKE DISH

I put two 4 1/2 inch squares with blue transparent on top and clear on bottom.  One I placed with blue on top and the other the clear square was larger than the blue so I placed the clear piece on the top.  I followed the colour de verre firing schedule for a panel fuse which kept the temperature very low so they suggested grinding the corners before firing.  Well I did not do that, knowing my kiln burns hot and both squares came out fine with rounded corners.  In fact I liked the one with the bigger clear square on top because placed the other way it could have fired with a clear rim around the blue top and that would have not looked like what i wanted.  The only problem with the firing was that I had "blemishes" on the bottom of both squares.  I had placed them on thin fire paper because my shelf itself had some blemishes but did not expect that they would show through the paper, but in this firing they did.    Well I am going to go ahead with them anyway.  I placed a snow flake on each one of them.  A few edges of one of the snow flakes had broken off but i placed it on the square, as I did the other and applied some glue and here is what they looked like.  Once they dry i will replace my shelf with the other one I have, although it too has blemishes, and I will tack fuse the snow flake to the square.

CONTINUATION OF POT MELTS

Not sure of what I put in before or what happened but here is the result of my latest pot melt

Because of the uneven edges, which I have ground as well as I can, and because of some spikes on the surface of the melt, I am putting it through for another firing.  Used Delphi Firing Screen Melt 2nd Firing as follows:

225 dph.................................1050 degrees...................hold 20 ins
800 dph.................................1465 degrees...................hold 30 mins
full...........................................900 degrees...................hold 1 hour
150 dph............................,.......700 degrees...................hold 1 min
off

And it worked, the pits and spikes in the melt, along with the rough edges, however for the uneven sides I placed some mixed clear frit, pieces both large and small, on the edges and they fused into an even more uneven edge.  The clear base that that I placed there fused well but there may be some scum on the surface.  Not exactly sure what to do.  Should I try to save it, grind the clear uneven edges, soak it in vinegar to see if I can remove some of the scum.  If that does not remove it place it in for another firing to remove devit, or just put it in a box to be cut up at some later point and try again from the beginning.  Somehow I want to take this through to completion.  That seems like good practice and maybe I will learn something, so I will follow the above steps and then slump it.

To clear off the devit I covered the circle with a layer of clear powder and have put it back in kiln to fuse to 1410 with a hold of 20 mins.  once it comes out, it is pretty thick.  I can slump it and will try.

 This is the next pot melt, using blue and green transparent, along with what looks like amber transparent.  Am going to melt it into a square former which I have lined with fiber paper.

So this came out looking like this:

For the pot melt I used the following firing schedule
250 dph.....................................1100 degrees..........................hold 15 mins
450 dph......................................1680 degrees.........................hold 1 hour
Full.............................................1520 degrees.........................hold 15 mins
Full ............................................  900 degrees..........................hold 3 hours 
100dph..........................................800 degrees..........................hold 1 hour
100 dph.........................................650 degrees..........................hold 15 mins
off 
I simply changed it by not holding it 3 hours at 900 degrees and held it 2 hours instead.  This above piece could have benfited from more clear.  It is a little muddy and it had a spike and one corner of the glass looked like it had cracked some time earlier in the process.  So with all those potential areas that will not improve I am placing that in the kiln again and re firing it a 2nd time with the hope that the spike will smooth out, the sides repair themselves and the piece get a little thinner.   I am using the following firing schedule:

225 dph......................1100 degrees..........................hold 20 mins
800 dph.......................1465 degrees.........................hold 30 mins
Full ..............................900 degrees..........................hold 1 hour
300 dph........................ 350 degrees..........................Off

So here is what happened.  on the corner where the glass looked like it had cracked it was a lot worse

It is a mess and looks volcanic.

FULL FUSE SMALL ASHTRAY

Small, perhaps 3 1/2 inch square dish of red streaked clear glass over clear glass full fused and then slumped over this subtle pretty mold.   For this small piece I used the following schedule which was successful, schedule from Bullseye Glass: Firing: Basic Applications: Slump firings:

200dph..........................................................1200 degrees.............................Hold 10 mins
Full.................................................................900 degrees.............................Hold 1 hour
100 dph...........................................................700 degrees.............................Hold 1 min
Full....................................................................70 degrees.............................Hold 1 min
off

2nd experiment in full fusing and slumping:

Next, I am full fusing a 9 1/2 inch triangle of clear glass covered by white.  On the white glass I placed transparent blue streamers only on the outside for a slight subtle design.  After the fusing I hope to slump this on a basic triangular drop mold.  I am using the following schedule:
400dph...............................1250 degrees....................hold 30 mins
600dph................................1465degrees....................hold 10 mins
full........................................900degrees....................hold 30 mins
150dph..................................700degrees........................0
full............................................70degrees.....................off

The full fusing came out well.  The sides of the clear blank on the bottom were not completely straight, so the fused bottom looks a little weird.  I am currently slumping that triangular piece of glass into a a triangular mold which I have elevated on two inch kiln posts: 

Now I am just hoping that I coated the inside of the mold with kiln shelf release, otherwise it will stick to it as it drips through.  I used the following firing schedule to slump the piece:

200 dph...................................................1200 degrees.......................................hold 45 min.
Full ...........................................................900 degrees.......................................hold 1 1/2 hours
100 dph......................................................700 degrees......................................-0-
Full..............................................................70 degrees.......................................off

SUNCATCHERS

They are great and maybe I can make a few which will be beautiful in glass.  I have begun with two round disks of clear 3mm glass.  That is a real advance since prior to this I found it so difficult to cut circles.  But success and on the top of one I but brown and green pieces of glass to emulate the look of a tree.  Forgot to take a before picture but popped it in the kiln and fired it with the following schedule:

300 dph......................................1150 degrees..................................hold 30 mins
600 dph......................................1430 degrees..................................hold 12 mins
Full...............................................900 degrees..................................hold 1 hour
100 dph........................................ 700 degrees..................................hold 2 mins
Off.


Results to come:  Out of the kiln and I immediately see a small hairline crack in the glass.  After a little research I found the following:

• Small, interconnected cracks (like a spider web).

These cracks generally extend from a single spot on the underside of the glass. They aren't usually severe enough to cause the item to split into pieces. Sometimes shelf primer will also be stuck to the underside of the glass. Most likely, this kind of crack is caused by glass sticking to the kiln shelf. A close examination of the shelf may even reveal small pieces of glass that are stuck to the shelf. The obvious solution is to scrap the shelf clean and apply fresh kiln wash.

This makes sense and appears to be the problem.  I did notice a small tiny, piece of glass on shelf which I did not think much of, no more of that from now on.  I will be using thinline paper until I put fresh kiln wash on shelf.

EXPERIMENTS WITH FLOW FUSING

I basically put 5 or 6 clear pieces of glass, most which were 3mm, and added stringers to one of them in the middle.  On top of that I placed two or three more layers of clear glass.  The sides were uneven and they were in pieces.  I placed them on fiber paper and dammed them are three sides with kiln furniture.  I placed fiber paper between the glass and the dams and elevated one of the sides so that the glass would flow towards the other side.  Then I fired it with the following schedule:

100 dph..................................300 degrees..........................................hold 15 mins
200 dph..................................600 degrees..........................................hold 15 mins
300 dph..................................1050 degrees........................................hold 15 mins
450 dph...................................1490 degrees........................................hold 15mins
 Full............................................900 degrees.......................................hold 2 hours
300 dph........................................700 degrees......................................hold 10 mins
off

Don't have any idea how it will all come out.  Really that is quite a few levels of glass, although not very big piece of glass, it might still take a long to melt it all.  I also don't know how the flow issue will work.  Bullseye has a tip sheet on working deep which I will take a closer look at.  We shall see what happens

So what I got was an uneven thick block where the stringer moved deep within.  I think I will look at Bullseye which seems to have a video on flow fusing and also a tip sheet on "working Deep"

Experiment 3

I am currently fusing a piece of glass onto this carved piece of fiber board.  The glass is made up of two pieces.  see example below.  I created this piece by placing 2 pieces of blue on either side of the red piece and firing it shelf down and placing a white piece of glass as a base beneath it.  The design came out well, straighter than usual, so now I placed this piece on top of the carved fiber board 

300 dph..................................................1360 degrees..............................hold 20 mins
300 dph...................................................1465 degrees.............................hold 5 mins
Full............................................................900 degrees.............................hold 1 hour
100 dph......................................................700 degrees.............................hold 1 min
Off

So here is what I am considering, the circle around the celtic design is thin as are most of the other lines in the design.  Additionally the design where I carved them is uneven in the bottom.  I am wondering how this will effect the glass that is melting.