Right Brain Feed

 Caution: glass geek post!. One problem that frequently arises is how to get rid of surface devitrification (ugly scum that shows up on fired glass). Some things that cause it: residue from my glass cleaner or drying rags, dust from my adjacent clay studio, glue that gets used to hold glass in place while carefully transporting it to the kiln, finger prints, price tag goo, etc.  In the glass community groups devitrification (aka devit) is a frequent topic of discussion. People ask for advice on how to clean their glass before firing, and which glass glue works best. All sorts of answers pop up, with not a lot of side by side tests. As a software engineer learning fused glass, it helps me learn if I test. I tested 20 different scenarios with 3 different COE 96 clear glass types that I had in stock: Oceanside Crystal clear, Oceanside icicle clear, and Wissmach clear. Each test consisted of a 1x1 inch square of glass with a cleaning method, and possibly a glue substance and glue ...

 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 thril...