Don’t Believe Everthing You Read

You have heard it before, “Don’t believe everything you read!” I know this, but never expected it to apply to what I read in my glass fusing books.

All of the books I own stress how important it is to have the glass clean before fusing it to prevent devitrification. At least one of the books I own suggests using vinegar to clean the glass. I use alcohol occasionally but mostly I use vinegar because it is less harsh. It seemed to work fine, but the other day I discovered a problem with using vinegar. From now on I will be using alcohol.

After full fusing a set of plates, I was getting them ready to slump and cleaned them with vinegar. As I wiped the plates dry I noticed a haze and some spotting that wasn’t there when I took the plates out of the kiln. I think it was a mild etching from the vinegar. I noticed this kind of haze a few other times, but didn’t realize until just then that it was the vinegar that caused it. Nothing I tried to clean it with removed the haze. The only thing that worked was a bit of hand polishing with cerium oxide.

It was difficult to capture the haze in a photograph. In the photo below, if you look at the reflection of the overhead light you can see the haze on the bottom half. The top half is where I polished it out.

VinegarHaze

Always something new to learn!

2 thoughts on “Don’t Believe Everthing You Read

  1. Janice Seiffert says:

    Your items are beautiful. I especially like the green plate with the black bird.

    I would like to share a site with you. hotglassproducts.com.

    It is a glass cutter my son designed and produces. Once artists try it, especially for strip cutting, they will not use anything else. Take a look at the video, really short. I will visit your site again to see your new creations.

    Janice

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