Wednesday, February 3, 2010

First casting assembled; and now we wait.

Heavy components of solid glass thrill me. My first fusing projects were heavy stacks made with dams and bricks to hold 1-2" of glass together. Something about the weight, the heft. My fusing is always deliberate, stark and simple. I can't yet call myself an artist, but rather a studier of techniques; over time my own voice will emerge, so for now I'm satisfied to explore.

A mold casting is fairly simple, something anyone could do, so I'm not worried too much about the outcome. I'm using a reusable mold from Colour de Verre. After spraying a few layers of kiln wash on with a spray bottle, the mold was fired to 500 for an hour, then cooled. The directions made me nervous; it said using a moderate bristled brush, remove the "extra" kiln wash. Is there such a thing as extra? That worried me, but it's a $6 mold I picked up at the winter Glass Fusions sale. I'll take the risk in following the directions.

The molds come with a weight designation telling you how much glass to mound into it. As I measured out 126 grams of frit, it didn't look like enough to fill it. But, it did. I used Bullseye in Juniper Blue with a scattering of finer Emerald Green to give the resulting turtle a little speckled look. Pulling it all away from the edge to insure a nice flow into the far reaches of the mold, it's in the kiln for a simple firing program:

To 1000 at 500/hr;
AFAP to 1425, soak for 25;
AFAP (w/o vent) to 960, soak for 60;
Shut kiln off for cool down w/o vent.

Tune in tomorrow for, hopefully, the finished result!

Edit: the 25 minute soak at full fuse wasn't enough. So back up for another 30 minutes. We'll see! And the glass settled a huge amount. I'd put in about 10% more next time. 

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