First glass project, small plate
26 Oct 2014I don't actually know what to call this. It's not really a plate... it's about 4 inches and has gently sloped sides so it doesn't hold very much. But it was the first thing I made in my kiln!
Originally, I didn't buy very much glass, I told myself that I had to actually make something before I could justify spending a bunch of money on glass. Also when I bought my first glass I had no idea what I was doing and everything I got was transparent.
I started with a clear base. On top are blue/yellow spirit glass borders with a clear square in the middle. I also cut up some of the scraps and made them into little squares that will turn into gems in the kiln due to the surface tension of glass.
Here is a peek into the kiln when I crash cooled it. (After the glass finishes the fusing at 1460 degrees F, you can bring it down to 1000 quicker than the kiln cools down on it's own. Then the controller takes back over and slowly cools the glass to allow it to relieve stress.)
Everything inside the kiln is glowing red hot. You can see that the squares have become little glowing circles.
This is after they were done firing. You can see bubbles in the middle of the square. I'll have to research and test more to figure out how to reduce/eliminate them.
And here are the pieces once they were out of the kiln and cleaned up.
Next it was time to slump (actually drape in this case) the piece onto a mold. This mold is a cheap stainless steel mixing bowl I got at Winco that is coated in kiln wash to prevent the glass from sticking to it. I had to heat the bowl up to about 500 degrees and paint the kiln wash onto it while it was hot in order to get it to stick. Kiln wash has the consistency of milk, and evaporated/dried instantly upon being brushed onto the very hot bowl. It was a pretty fascinating process.
After another several hours in the kiln, here is the finished product:
