Sunday 13 April 2014

A Little Bit of Glass Fusing

When I did the silver Clay with Hillary Bowen last year she also let us do a few small glass cabochons in her kiln.  She also gave me some firing instructions to have a go myself at home.  Yesterday I finally dug out all the glass and had a go!

This was the first lot.  As you can see I over cut the clear glass layer on most of them and there are a few burst bubbles so these are a fail.

But I liked the little odd pair at the bottom.  Interesting to see that the purple iridescent glass actually started as blue before firing. Still pretty but not what I wanted.


The second batch.  I cut the clear glass smaller, down to about 2 mm larger this time. I did straighten these up but I had to carry them out to the kiln first. The large pieces were just to use up all the scraps I had left over from cutting the others.

 Pleased with these four pairs, they will be cufflinks.  John has already nabbed the blue ones.

These white I put on button backs.  There are one or two bubbles but I don't mind them.  It shows they weren't made by a robot!  But I will also try a lower temp, longer time fire next time so the bubbles have time to rise.

And this pair were quite pretty with the smallest slither of clear glass showing which you can see at the bottom in the photos.

I have learned a lot from just playing yesterday.  For a start I think my clear glass may be thinker than what I used at Hilary's.  Glass will always settle to 6mm when heated so they spread like cooking biscuits.  If there is too much clear it will just over run.  I will cut the clear glass just a fraction smaller again next time and hopefully get it right!   Oh the four larger cabochons came out a great shape but poor condition so were scrap too.  At least I could smash them and reuse them if necessary, or just keep them to learn from my mistakes.

Have a great week ahead!


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