I admit it. I am addicted to buying glass molds. Every time I go to my supplier I look to see what molds are on sale. These days, when I get a new mold, I fire a clear piece of glass in the mold first. This provides me with a lot of valuable information before I use the mold with expensive glass.
- First, it confirms the correct size of the glass blank I need to create.
- Next, it tells me if I will need to address any particular issues with the mold. For example, will the piece be flat on the bottom? Will the glass shrink down the sides?
- And last but not least, it helps me in the design phase of future pieces. I now have a clear visual of the end result and have a better idea of where to place design elements.
So far, I have been using inexpensive clear glass left over from stained glass projects. Using this kind of glass, however, has one major disadvantage. Because it doesn’t behave like standard fused glass, the firing schedule I use may or may not work for my fusible System 96 glass. Next time I go to my supplier I will pick up a few sheets of 4mm clear fusible to use just for this purpose.
Below are some of my more recent mold purchases.
This is a ceramic fluted bowl drape mold. As you can see it needed more time in the kiln. But even without a tight drape, the result is good.
On this round bowl mold the glass slipped down considerably and unevenly. I will need to experiment more with this one.
This mold also could have used a little more time in the kiln. It didn’t slump all the way into the bottom.
This is an excellent idea, and something I need to do. I have multiple molds that produced oddball glass, because I didn’t realized they slumped weird..
Yes! Unless it is a very basic mold, I now always do this first.
Do you then fire polish the piece after draping to make the mold-side shiny?
No. Can’t fire polish after they are draped. The temperatures needed to fire polish are too high. It would deform the shape.
Such an amazing work.could please refer me to where l can obtain the big drape mold? I love it. Thank you. Joseph
Here is a link to the mold http://www.bluefiremolds.com/files/moldSingle.php?page=drape&mold=3103&name=Fluted%20Bowl&title=DRAPE%20SLUMPING%20MOLDS