I am using a drop ring mold that is 9" in diameter on the outside and the hole is 5" in diameter. I cut two circles of clear glass (96 Spectrum) about 7" in diameter. I fused these two layers together in my kiln a couple of weeks ago. I want to have two layers of glass for this vase, because I am making it 4" tall and I don't want the vase to be too fragile.
I chose three colors of glass to add to the top of the clear layers. I gathered up my frit, stingers and scrap glass in these three colors and arranged them with no particular pattern in mind (see the photo below).
This photo shows the clear glass with three colors of frit, stringers and scrap glass on top. I put the glass on the drop ring mold and made sure it was centered.
I put the drop ring mold on posts that are 4" high.
I tack fused the colored glass to the clear glass in one firing. To do this, I soaked the glass at 1200 degrees for 60 minutes. After that, I raised the temperature to 1330 degrees and watched the glass very closely, so it would melt down to the shelf and make a nice solid base. I got the idea to tack fuse and slump the drop ring in one fusing from the website: www.warmglass.com in the Warm Tips section.
I am using a manual ceramic kiln, so I need to spend a lot of time watching the temperature and turning the dials on the kiln up or down when needed. During parts of the firing, the glass piece needs to soak at a certain temperature, so I need to be watching the temperature, so it stays constant.
Right now, the firing of the drop ring vase is done. Now I am annealing the glass, which means that I am slowly dropping the temperature. At certain temperatures, the glass needs to soak. Annealing the glass piece makes the glass much stronger and not likely to crack from stress.
I will end Part 1 at this point. Part 2 will show you the finished vase. We need to wait till tomorrow morning to open the kiln and take the vase out and look at it.
Christine -- Glass Artist
www.mastersglassart.com
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2 comments:
Hi Christine,
Your glass is awesome! I was intigued with your purple/white lace glass vase. My daughter is getting married in July and I wanted to make her centerpieces for the tables, then whoever is sitting at the table of ten with a red dot on their chair, wins the centerpiece.
It should be great fun and very special!
The theme is black and white, which seems to be the rage these days. I was going to make ten 8-10" vases. I wanted to humbly ask your opinion on a couple of things.
What size drop out mold would you do for the 8-10" vases? I was going to fuse some white and black frit seperately for the glass lace. The white lace would go on the black glass vase and the black lace would go on the white vase. I'll stack the glass with the proper cm as you suggested.
I was thinking since you said you tacked the lace on the bottom of the stack of just using clear on the bottom of the stack, next the lace, and then the colored glass and dropping it all together.
What size ring drop do you use for this? What do you think about the white lace and how it will come out on black?
I don't do glass professionally, but I have fun with it and it has challanged me.
Thankyou,
Steph
Hi Steph,
Thanks for the compliment on my glass!
The black and white vases sound very nice! I think the white lace will show up nicely on the black, just don't make the lace too delicate with not enough white to show up.
I used the same size ring mold -- 9" diameter on the outside and 5" diameter on the inside.
For the Purple vase with the white lace, I fully fused the lace to the purple and it came out just fine. However, fusing a clear on top of the lace will be fine, too.
I'm glad you are having fun with glass -- that's all that matters!!
Good luck with your vases!
Christine
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