More stuff from the kiln

Ages ago, I posted about a new melt pot setup that I had bought and I showed the results of the first disk that I had created using the melt pot. A while back when I was slumping some other bowls I put the melt pot disk onto my wave bowl mold and finished it off.  It turned out great!  You can click the image to bring up a larger version.

Another piece I'm working on is a square bowl done with a new technique I got off the web, called swiss cheese.  By putting clear glass pebbles on top of opaque glass, you can create a really interesting effect that does look like swiss cheese.  I didn't have clear pebbles, but I did have some transparent colored ones and I thought they might work just as well.  Unfortunately they didn't, but they created a very retro looking glass blank.  Click to enlarge this one too.

The red pebbles actually looked pale green before firing, so it seems that the heat of the kiln changes the color of those particular pebbles - that's called striking.  If I had known in advance, I wouldn't have chosen those, since I was trying to keep to blues, greens, and yellows.  I do like the result, even if it wasn't anything like what I was expecting, but I'm curious to hear what you think of it.  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts on it.  It will be going into the kiln either tomorrow or Monday, depending on when the current batch of glass that's in the kiln now gets done.

More to come in a few days...

Need another strategy...

Well, the oddness out of my kiln continues. The results of the second pot melt firing were no better than the first.  There were still glass strings connecting the pot with the fused disk below even after doubling the melt time.  Here's a shot of the disk after the second firing so you can see the cool pattern that results from the melt pot:

This disk I'm going to fire one more time at full fuse temperature to allow the three pokey bits on top to lay back down into the glass surface and to allow the disk to get to a more even thickness and roundness.  Then, the next part of the fun begins.  I have a texture plate with a swirl design embedded into the surface.  When I lay the fused disk over it and do a slump firing, it will embed the texture into the bottom of the glass.  Then I will slump it again into a wavy bowl mold to create the bowl shape.  Personally, I have to admit that I don't get how the texture will stay in the glass as it slumps into the bowl shape, but I've seen quite a lot of great results of people putting textures into bowl and plate blanks, then slumping them into shape so I'll just take it on faith that it works.

The new strategy for the next pot melt will be to keep the doubled melt time, but increase the temperature of the melt from 1600 to 1650 degrees.  Hopefully, the extra heat will create a better separation between the pot and disk.  If that doesn't work, I'll try increasing the temperature yet again in the next firing until I can get a clean disk.

First melt pot results

Cool!  Well, I found out that the instructions that come with the melt pot don't give a long enough melt time to get all of the glass out of the pot.  I've added a little more clear glass to the pot and refired again with a much longer melt time so that the glass can flow out further into a thinner disk and the rest of the colored glass that was left in the pot can flow out.  I do like the effect, though - it kind of reminds me of tie-dye.

New glass toys

I ordered a few new molds from Delphi Glass several weeks ago and the melt pot kit was on backorder, so it held up delivery for a while.  The order finally came in last week just before I had to run out for a meeting.  So, I had to wait to unpack my toys until the next day.  One of the things that intrigued me greatly (so of course I just HAD to buy it), was a melt pot kit.

What is that, I hear you ask?  The kit consists of 4 x 3" posts, a support for the pot, and a set of 4 pots with different combinations of single or multiple round or rectangular holes in the bottom of each pot.  The photo shows the loaded setup in my kiln before I shut the door and started the firing cycle.  (Double click to enlarge it.)

The idea is that once the glass gets to the melting point, the molten glass will run out of the holes in the bottom of the melt pot and create a round blank centered below the pot.  The size of the finished blank is determined by the amount of glass that is loaded into the pot.  The instructions gave a sample of 2.6 pounds to create a 9 inch round blank after firing.

The pot I chose for my first experiment was the 3 rectangular holed pot.  (Shucks, I just realized that I didn't take a picture of the pot itself before firing.  Ah, well, I'll show you the pot after the firing is over.)  So, I loaded up the melt pot with three pounds of glass scraps, which according to my calculations should yield about a 10.5 inch round glass blank when it gets done firing.  There was also an 11" wavy bowl mold in the order, which I plan to use with the blank that I'm creating in this process, assuming that it turns out well.

One of the most fun parts of this is that there is very little control of what happens as the glass melts and runs out of the pot onto the kiln shelf below.  You can control how you load the scraps into the pot and how you orient each color above the holes, but that's about it.  So, for this process, it's a matter of experiment, record what you do, and then wait to see how that turns out.  Then, if you don't like the result, vary your loading and the amount of glass and try again.  I promise to let you know how this one turns out - good or bad...