Normally if you see glass from me it’s been baptized in the flame. Once in a while, though, I like to dabble in the “warm glass” waters; that is, I like to fuse, slump, and even cast. A quickie glossary for the non-vitreous folks since I don’t recall covering it before.
- Fusing – In a nutshell, bringing pieces of glass up to high temp so they, well, fuse together. By controlling the temp and length of time in the kiln, you can control how fully the glass is fused.
- Slumping – You bring the glass up to a softening temperature (lower than fusing) so that the glass forms either over or into a mold, slumping into it.
- Casting – Using crushed or powdered glass pressed into a form, or heating glass to a liquid point where it flows into a form. Once cooled, voila, you have the shape of the mold.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…there’s something I’ve been wanting to try to cast. I’ll get into the what at a later date, but it’s a process I’ve only tried once before. In particular, I’m looking to try a pate de verre casting.
The general process is to have a positive item you want to cast, you pour mold material over that, and then later you remove the positive, pack the mold and bring it up to fusing temperature.
So tonight I made my positive out of clay, and what a mess. It’s fun getting messy sometimes, but the problem is that I’m out in my shop with no running water. Note to self, get some baby wipes for the shop. But…I got my object made.
Next, I had to sort out what to surround this puppy with to corral the mold material in the next step. I had some 9×9 tinfoil brownie pans out in my shop just for this purpose, but they aren’t deep enough, so I had to tape them on top of each other with a hole cut out of the top. It worked. Mostly, there would be a little leakage.
What leaked? The plaster/silica mix that I put together to use as the mold material. I’ve heard casters say that to properly mix the material, you need to do it by hand, literally with your hands. So, on a lark, I tried it tonight. Did I mention I don’t have a sink or wipes out in my shop? I do have some paper towels though, so it wasn’t a total disaster. But anyway, I finally got it mixed together and poured into the cavity and I even remembered to use mold release this time, which is one of those things I too often forget.
A little leakage later, and I have a mold sitting overnight to solidify. Hopefully Wednesday I’ll be able to pack and fire it. Stay tuned!