Pottery and glass mashup

 I fired my kiln yesterday to slump some of my fused glass into bowl shape using a mold…. And I friggin made the mold myself! And it actually worked! 

Fused glass projects typically require multiple trips thru the kiln. Typically you fuse a bunch of pieces of cut glass together into a flat disc or flat square , then in a second firing you slump it into a mold. Since molds cost 15-70$ each, I thought I’d use my mad pottery skillz and made my own. 

I threw my mold as a bottomless cylinder on the wheel, then flared it out to the bowl shape. I used clay that’s really close to being porcelain (Highwaters Little Loafer ), and made sure the inside was super smooth by ribbing it like crazy. I fired it only to cone 04, because I read somewhere that bisque fired pots work better for mold than fully vitrified clay.

In this glass slump firing I used papyros under it, since it does slump all the way to the touch the shelf,  but next time I’m going to skip the papyros.

I was thrilled when I opened up the kiln today. Lots of ideas for other mold shapes to try!