it's all about firing schedules

The other glassy lady has focused on lampwork, and she's at a truly professional level already.

In contrast, everything I've done with the fusing and slumping to this point is really at the experimental stage. In part because I've only had access to the mini-bead kiln so far but that's about to change!

What I've created so far has been fun to string together and make windchimes out of, but nothing really functional or wearable quite yet. But I'm totally enthused and full of ideas. And that's why I think it's time (after all, our first class at Starfish was over three months ago and we've already got a second kiln on order) to start recording the results of my experiments rather than trying to keep it all in my head.

So -- a few basics. Apart from some wonderful and not so wonderful recycled glass projects, both the lampwork and the fusing/slumping projects have used System 96 - sheets and rods. (And yes I *do KNOW* that any rogue glass must be kept completely separate. I'd love to get to the point where we can test for compatibility but we're not there yet)

And, from the first few experiences I have found that:
- the cheap blue craft glue does indeed burn cleanly away and it really doesn't work to think you can just layer the pieces without gluing - so use glue and don't worry about it
- copper inclusions tend to go black although burning a bit of charcoal with the firing does seem to help this. Silver is a wonderful thing to include (although it can go yellow or black when used with certain colours of glass)!
- I love bulls-eye thinfire shelf paper and the fiber felt, but my first experiments with the fiber board were not too happy (- sticking and nasty textures -- I'm ready to use the rigidizing liquid)
- baking soda makes bubbles (more to learn about this for sure)
- yard sale and dollar store stainless steel items really do work as molds. So do terracotta plant pots
and
- firing schedules are not an exact science! the books can be WRONG!


Kiln wash will stick fairly nicely to a metal mold if the mold is heated first but you need to be preparing days in advance to get enough coats. Trying to paint kiln wash on a cold stainless steel item can be frustrating.

Wrapping shelf paper over a tiny plant pot and securing it with scotch tape was my short cut for the "glass strip bowl" shown above. I just wanted to see if the previously fused strips would slump at 1350 Degrees and if I had ended up with a ruined pot it would have been okay. But the trick worked so I'll probably use it again. Amongst other items fired at 1350 were the pendants shown here as well -- they had already been fully fused in one of my 45 minutes at 1540 firings -- quite a bit higher than the 1465 that the book recommended. For fusing I never got the smoothness I wanted until I went above 1500. But using fiber felt for the channel (so that the cord can go through) left sharp edges which I wanted to soften up. Putting the pendants back (fiber felt removed) in the kiln at 1350 was not enough to do that! Much hotter and I'm afraid the channel will slump. Maybe I just need to sand those little sharpies.

So here's my (sort of typical) fusing schedule when I want, for instance, the little white squares that form the heart to fully melt into the black background.

6-segment
............rate /hour .......degrees.............hold
1.............750.............1000 .............10
2. .............500 .............1540.............40
3 as fast as possible....1000 ............. 10
4..............250 .............950 .............40 (annealing happens here)
5..............150 .............800 ............. 0
6. .............350 ............. 300 ............. (note the total time of firing is thus about 7 hrs)