I have been fusing glass long enough now that I have quite a collection of fusible scrap glass. Actually it is a bit of a misnomer to call my leftover pieces of glass “scrap” glass. Glass fusers save every piece of glass. It can always be used some way in another project. So it’s not really scrap glass.

To make the stacked glass plate, I first cut a piece of black glass as the base. Next I went through my leftover glass bins looking for square and rectangular pieces that were about the right size. I placed these randomly, and didn’t really give a whole lot of thought to the colors I was using. (I haven’t met a color yet that I don’t like.) The second layer of glass stacks was done pretty much the same as the first. I did have to cut a few pieces of glass to get the second and third layers to fit. There was no measuring or planning in this process. It was totally random. The full fuse was flawless and I got the exact result I had hoped for. The slump went perfectly too. I love it when a piece goes together so easily. Believe me, this doesn’t happen often enough! I put the plate on my kitchen counter and had no intention of selling it.

When two friends saw the plate in my home I suddenly had two commissions for similar plates. Now this got me thinking. How do I recreate a piece that was purely random? I could study the piece and copy what I did, but then it would be neither original nor random. If I just wing it again, it may be too random and I risk it not turning out they way they expect it to. I decided to draw out a grid with different size pieces on it to use as a general guide line. This helped assure that I would use a variety of sizes. I used the same colors as in the original piece. This time, however, not all the glass came from my leftover bin. So while it may not have been completely random, I did keep the placement random and did not refer to the original plate. The result was great. Both plates have a similar look and feel as the original, and yet each one is unique.

I know I’ll be making more variations of this design in the future.

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I couldn’t identify what the spots were. They looked like tiny water spots. After unsuccessfully cleaning the plate several times with various cleaners I tried a cleaner I had for Corning Ware. Corning Ware is glass right? So why wouldn’t it work on this? I tried it only to find that it made the glass dull. Ugh! Now I was thinking about sandblasting and refiring the piece. This is not a problem when the piece is still flat, but once it is slumped in a mold, it’s a bit trickier. Fire too hot and the piece could lose its shape. Fire too low and the top might not get glossy.

But a moment of brilliance prevailed! I had some cerium oxide on hand. Cerium oxide is a very fine abrasive powder used to do a final polish on glass. It is mixed with water and usually applied with felt disks on flat grinders. I don’t have this kind of equipment (yet), but I do have a Dremel tool. I used some on a felt polishing tip and it worked like a charm. Now it’s perfect!

This piece is designated to be a raffle item for an upcoming event benefiting Comfy for Chemo. I’ll be posting more on this in the near future.

Let me just say that I am a sucker for books. I love books. All kinds of books: cook books, travel books, craft books, art books, and computer books. I could spend hours in a book store. So it came as no surprise that I ended up buying two books; neither of which was the book I originally intended to buy.

One of the books I purchased was Joy of Fusing written by Randy & Carole Wardell. This is an excellent book for the beginning glass fuser. The first 30 pages cover all the basics in a clear concise way. The rest of the book has 27 projects that incorporate various techniques.

For the beginning glass fuser, one of the most valuable parts of this book is the section that explains how to make sample tiles complete with six firing schedules from an elevated tack to a deep fuse. Even though I have been fusing for almost 3 years and know my kiln fairly well, I plan on making a set of these sample tiles. Not only will they help me with design considerations, but they will be a great visual tool when I teach classes. Speaking of visual… one of the best parts about this book is the abundance of photographs with step by step instructions for every project.

I highly recommend this book. To see sample pages visit the website: http://www.wardellpublications.com/bookdetailpgs/JOF.html

Why is it that something I’ve done many times before all of a sudden doesn’t work. The last two vases I made were disasters. The first one I knew I over cooked because I missed when the kiln reached the process temperature.  This last one, I thought I watched closely and stopped in time. But apparently not. One of the corners folded over the edge of the stainless steel form. The only way to get out the form was to break the vase. Let’s hope the third time’s a charm…

Today I am sharing a failure. Let me just say that it is so much more fun to share successes! But I do  learn a lot from the failures. And since I promised to share the journey, this is part of it.

A few months ago I made custom handkerchief vase for someone. She loved it. Unfortunately the cat jumped up on the table where the vase was sitting and knocked it over. So she asked me to make another one for her.

I will start by saying that whenever I put the glass for a handkerchief vase in the kiln, I always set the temperature alarm to go off when the kiln reaches the process temperature. The process temperature is when the glass takes its shape. I program the kiln to hold at the process temperature for 10 minutes. But in reality, when the kiln reaches the temperature I watch it very closely. The trick is to stop the heating when the glass has taken on the shape you want. Sometimes it takes just 2 or 3 minutes. Other times it has taken 15 or 20. It all depends on the type of glass, and how thick it is.

I put the glass for the replacement vase in the kiln. I set the alarm and went about doing some other things. Several hours later I began to wonder why I hadn’t heard the alarm yet. I went to check on the kiln and discovered that I had set the alarm for a higher temperature than the process temperature. The alarm never went off. I had a dyslexic moment when I punched in the numbers. This meant that I had totally missed the process temperature! The kiln was already in the cool down phase of the process. The glass was at the process temperature for 10 minutes and I had no ideas what it would look like.

When the kiln finally reached room temperature and I could open the kiln, I was not happy!  Ten minutes was way too long. The glass had draped too tightly against the form. As I removed the form a piece broke off.  Not only was the shape not what I wanted, but the color had changed as well. Some glass changes color when heated. This is referred to as “striking” and the results vary by temperature and how long the glass is heatworked. The glass that I put into the kiln was a dark burnt orange color that was transparent. What came out was a brighter, lighter orange that was opaque!

So the lesson was a very basic one. Check the numbers very carefully!

This fused glass bowl is one of those pieces that evolved into the finished design. The original design was from the Bullseye Glass website Tint Tone Plate. This is a great website for technical information on glass fusing and design ideas. I used strips of glass in a bronze cathedral, opal ivory, and clear. Mine was going to be a rectangle measuring 12.5 inches x 7.5 inches. During the first full fuse firing a “mump” developed. A “mump” is where air is trapped between two layers of glass and can’t escape.

Plan B

I used my tile saw to cut the piece in two where the mump was. Then it went back into the kiln to fire polish the cut edge. Next I slumped the rectangle into a stainless steel mold. I am sure I mentioned in another post what a pain it is to kiln wash stainless molds. When I took the piece out of the mold, the kiln wash left a lot of texture on the back of the piece. I probably needed a few more coats of kiln wash. Sometimes texture is good. In this case I wasn’t happy with the way this looked.

Plan C

I sand blasted the bottom of the plate. I liked the look of that, and then decided I also wanted to sand blast some of the top for added interest. I masked off a few stripes and went to the sand blaster. I liked it; the texture added interest, but somehow it didn’t feel right. There was too much contrast.

Plan D

I sanded the mold to remove all of the kiln wash and then use a boron nitrate spray as a release agent. I put the dish back into the mold and did another slump fire schedule in the kiln. This softened the sand blasted areas leaving a very subtle texture.

Finally! I am happy with the end result. Here are some pictures.

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I am not sure what my fascination is with making fused glass snowflakes. Maybe it’s because I have fond memories of snowy winters in New York. Maybe it’s because snow is such a rare event where I live now in Houston. I don’t know, but I do know that a lot of you share this fascination with me. According to Google Analytics, the word “snowflake” is the most searched for word that brings people to my blog. And not just in the winter! All year long. Go figure.

This year I followed a tutorial I found on Dean Ujihara’s Blog posted in January of 2007. It turned out great. I fired it in my little 8″ Evenheat Kiln. I had to fire it at a higher temperature and a lot longer than Dean’s tutorial suggested, but as all fusers know every kiln is different. I tied an organza ribbon to the snowflake to hang it. I am searching for some kind of ornament loop I can attach to it. Another alternative is to use fiber paper to create a channel.

Unfortunately it looks like Dean abandoned his blog in 2009. That’s too bad. He seemed like a very creative guy. Thanks for sharing this Dean. Here is the link to his snowflake tutorial: http://dean.ujihara.org/blog/?p=13

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Lately, things just aren’t working out in my life the way I had expected them to. The plan which was working nicely suddenly changed. The picture I had in my head about how things would look is different now. I am going to have to make some adjustments to my way of thinking and hopefully it will all end up being even better than I originally imagined.

Working in fused glass can be an analogy for life situations like this. For instance, even when I use the same firing scheduled that I have used successfully before, things can go wrong. Such was the case with the mump that appeared on my bronze striped tint plate. Or, sometimes I have a great design idea, but it doesn’t turn out at all the way I imagined it. I have several fused glass pieces that are technically sound, but just don’t look the way they did in my head. On occasion, I will take a short cut that more often than not ends up making more work for me. That’s what happened with my latest plate.

The old carpenter’s adage that says, “Measure twice and cut once.” would have been good to remember. When I cut the piece of  blue cathedral glass on the bottom left of this picture, I cut it too small. I should have cut another piece in the correct size. Instead I just added another small strip of glass to it. My thought was the two pieces would fuse together and you would never know it. Well, it didn’t work! The clear base glass showed through leaving a visible line where the two pieces were supposed to fuse together. It is barely visible in the picture. I couldn’t convince myself that this was a design element. Now I had to take what I had and refashion it into something else. I had to be creative and make something even better or at least different.

I used my tile saw to cut the piece in two by cutting the clear strip out. I now had one large rectangle and one small one. The two pieces were refired in my kiln to polish and round off  the edges. A little devitrification showed up on the plate. To fix this I masked off everything except the section with the black lines in it and sandblasted it. This gave that section of the plate satin finished look which I think adds a lot of interest to the piece. The pieces were slumped into molds, and instead of one long rectangle dish I now have one smaller rectangle dish and one butter dish. I really needed a butter dish, and in the end I like the redesigned plate better than the original design!

Here are the finished pieces…

Along the way, I also discovered something fun that may prove to be useful. I tried to correct the color in my photo editing software by experimenting with the hue adjustment. What I found was that this adjustment could be used to totally change the color. This is a great way to get ideas for future color combinations that I might want to try. Here are some of the samples I came up with. I particularly like the gender neutral green. But come to think of it, that green reminds me of the dentist office I went to as a kid. Not the best childhood memory. I had a lot of cavities!

I hope Brendan likes his “first edition” Tooth Fairy plate.