I managed to make some
jewellery and a few plates and dishes when I was doing the evening class at
Helston but it was a pain having to carry all my supplies with me every time
and as it was only a two hour class it seemed by the time I set up it was time
to come home. It was a beginners class
and I was hungry to learn more. Here are
some of the things I made during that time.
these two look really good but I will let you into a secret - the pattern is already in the glass and all I had to do was cut it and put a layer of clear below and voila! The patterned glass is called Decofloat and is compatible with float glass
This one is made from clear float glass with cathedral glass, which is mainly used in stained glass work, the colours are not as good as Bullseye but it is much cheaper
This is Bullseye, wonderful to work with, always comes out with nicely rounded edges and comes in an amazing range of colours - four times more expensive than float though
Float again with Cathedral
There were a few things
that didn`t come back from the firing as I wanted.
a very expensive Bullseye dish that got dropped and I tried to re-fire but it didn`t work
If you look closely you can see the blue band of glass at the top should be on the edge more
These were supposed to be cufflinks like the Cornish Flag!
you may not see anything wrong with these but some I have cut the top glass too big and some have shifted in transporting to the kiln
this would have been a fantastic plate in Spectrum 96 glass - Frank wasn`t sure what went wrong
So it is not so easy firing the glass as I am finding out. I have been making samples
with float glass, which is just window glass and only come in clear. It is very cheap to buy and you can also pick
up some from skips to recycle. I have
been sandwiching all the coloured frits I bought between layers of glass. Frits are ground and powdered glass and don`t
always look the same once fired as they do in the jars, so I need to create a
set of samples so that I will know and my students will know exactly what it
will turn out like when they use these supplies. It takes a long time as I have to keep
careful records of what I have used so that I can label them. Apart from different colours, they come in
different sizes from 0 to 5. But I am
having a lot of problems with the firing of the float glass! It is very frustrating as it isn`t designed
to be fired like Bullseye or Spectrum which are tested before you buy but are
about four times more expensive that float.
Therefore I have to keep a record of firing schedules and alter them and
try again if I am not happy with the result and I am not a happy bunny!
For those of you who know I
am getting devit. For those that don`t
it is devitrification which is a scummy looking result which is very common
with float glass and can be eliminated by getting the firing schedule right
with lots of experimentation and I am not the most patient person! It also can happen if you do not clean your glass properly before firing, which is not the reason with mine.
I need to get this right on
my samples before I start making stuff to sell or mess up my students
work. Watch this space.
