WarmGlass.com

WOW! these are so cool! I am going to have to give this a try! THANK YOU for sharing with all of us!
Kim K

Thank you. I take it the link is working now?

Randy

ALL the pictures are showing up now - must have been a glitch somewhere. Kim K

This pot melt technique looks like so much fun. Thank you for showing them.

Jane

Wowie zowie
I was just getting ready to run out and try it then read the post saying "i wish I had a deeper kiln" and duh, I have an Oval 9, not much height. Can I put fiber board or fiberfrax on floor of kiln or use shallow pot perhaps?
Looking for advice from the potmeister
Jeri

Jeri Dantzig wrote:Wowie zowie
I was just getting ready to run out and try it then read the post saying "i wish I had a deeper kiln" and duh, I have an Oval 9, not much height. Can I put fiber board or fiberfrax on floor of kiln or use shallow pot perhaps?
Looking for advice from the potmeister
Jeri

You can do this in a 9 inch kiln. The lowest profile, largest volume pots are bonsai or cactus pots. They are a little harder to find and a little more expensive.

The way to avoid the kilnwash stuck to the bottom of the disc is to use plaster/silica molds. Don't use fiber paper -- the glass will eat it up and you'll get little fiber paper stones in your glass and it will crack.

The reason the red, yellow and orange cathedrals turn opaque is they strike. This technique takes too long at too high a temperature and makes for too much mixing for these cadmium/selinium colors to stay transparent. They are notoriously hard to work with and have been the basis for family glass business secrets for generations. Try them next to some copper blues and you'll get dark brown.

The blobby areas are where bubbles rose through early on and popped then smoothed over. You can deal with later bubbles by either waiting them out, (they will eventually pop and smooth out) or you can open your kiln and crash down to about 1350 then ramp back up to top temp to smooth things out again.

ch

Jeri Dantzig wrote:Wowie zowie
I was just getting ready to run out and try it then read the post saying "i wish I had a deeper kiln" and duh, I have an Oval 9, not much height. Can I put fiber board or fiberfrax on floor of kiln or use shallow pot perhaps?
Looking for advice from the potmeister
Jeri

You can do this in a 9 inch kiln. The lowest profile, largest volume pots are bonsai or cactus pots. They are a little harder to find and a little more expensive.

The way to avoid the kilnwash stuck to the bottom of the disc is to use plaster/silica molds. Don't use fiber paper -- the glass will eat it up and you'll get little fiber paper stones in your glass and it will crack.

The reason the red, yellow and orange cathedrals turn opaque is they strike. This technique takes too long at too high a temperature and makes for too much mixing for these cadmium/selinium colors to stay transparent. They are notoriously hard to work with and have been the basis for family glass business secrets for generations. Try them next to some copper blues and you'll get dark brown.

The blobby areas are where bubbles rose through early on and popped then smoothed over. You can deal with later bubbles by either waiting them out, (they will eventually pop and smooth out) or you can open your kiln and crash down to about 1350 then ramp back up to top temp to smooth things out again.

ch

Randy, your pot melts are terrific! They look as if you have slumped
them already. Does the melted glass hit your kiln posts?

One more question: It looks in the set-up as if you have fused together
some of the strips of yellow and black? Is that correct or do I need
glasses?

One more question ( and the last one, I believe). Could you rig it so
that the melted glass would fall into a slumping mold?

Keep up the good work and thanks for being so willing to share.

Warmly,
Nita

Randy,

Inspired by your post, I tried this yesterday. Three pound of glass in a 5" pot. After 1 hour at 1625; 45 min and 1650; and finally 30 min at 1675, only about half of my glass had made it through the aperture. The hole in the bottom of the pot was 5/16".

This created three problems:
1- it takes a long time
2- it left a stalactite of glass from the shelf to the reservoir because it was still flowing when it cooled.
3- the stream is so narrow, that the pattern on the glass is very tight.

How big is the hole in the bottom of your flower pots? Did you enlarge the existing hole in your pot?

Thanks for posting about this topic. It's something I've been meaning to try, and your post pushed me ahead.

Steve

charlie holden wrote:

Jeri Dantzig wrote:Wowie zowie
I was just getting ready to run out and try it then read the post saying "i wish I had a deeper kiln" and duh, I have an Oval 9, not much height. Can I put fiber board or fiberfrax on floor of kiln or use shallow pot perhaps?
Looking for advice from the potmeister
Jeri

You can do this in a 9 inch kiln. The lowest profile, largest volume pots are bonsai or cactus pots. They are a little harder to find and a little more expensive.

The way to avoid the kilnwash stuck to the bottom of the disc is to use plaster/silica molds. Don't use fiber paper -- the glass will eat it up and you'll get little fiber paper stones in your glass and it will crack.

The reason the red, yellow and orange cathedrals turn opaque is they strike. This technique takes too long at too high a temperature and makes for too much mixing for these cadmium/selinium colors to stay transparent. They are notoriously hard to work with and have been the basis for family glass business secrets for generations. Try them next to some copper blues and you'll get dark brown.

The blobby areas are where bubbles rose through early on and popped then smoothed over. You can deal with later bubbles by either waiting them out, (they will eventually pop and smooth out) or you can open your kiln and crash down to about 1350 then ramp back up to top temp to smooth things out again.

ch

Charlie, Thanks for all the valuable tips. I'll give the plaster/silica mold a try. I kinda figured the fiber paper would tear but would have given it a try just to see.
Even though the colors srtuck, I 'm still happy with the results.

Also thanks for the tips on getting rid of the bubbles. I'll give it a try tomorrow.

Randy

Bonita (Nita) Crawford wrote:Randy, your pot melts are terrific! They look as if you have slumped
them already. Does the melted glass hit your kiln posts?

One more question: It looks in the set-up as if you have fused together
some of the strips of yellow and black? Is that correct or do I need
glasses?

One more question ( and the last one, I believe). Could you rig it so
that the melted glass would fall into a slumping mold?

Keep up the good work and thanks for being so willing to share.

Warmly,
Nita

Thanks for the compliment. No I haven't slumped them yet, I got the motor on my grinder fixed and ground the disks round, gonna try fire polishing one this afternoon.
The glass doesn't hit my kiln posts but comes close. I weigh my glass first. I use a digital postal scale. 46 ounces of glass makes an 11.5" disk.
The strips aren't fused together, it just looks that way.
I suppose you could have it flow into anything. Sometime this week I plan on setting up dams and making a 1" thick slab, then cut it into thin strips. Sort of like a pattern bar. I'll let you know how it turns out.
I'm happy to share, I've learned so much from this board I figured it's my turn to give a little something back.

Randy

Steve Immerman wrote:Randy,

Inspired by your post, I tried this yesterday. Three pound of glass in a 5" pot. After 1 hour at 1625; 45 min and 1650; and finally 30 min at 1675, only about half of my glass had made it through the aperture. The hole in the bottom of the pot was 5/16".

This created three problems:
1- it takes a long time
2- it left a stalactite of glass from the shelf to the reservoir because it was still flowing when it cooled.
3- the stream is so narrow, that the pattern on the glass is very tight.

How big is the hole in the bottom of your flower pots? Did you enlarge the existing hole in your pot?

Thanks for posting about this topic. It's something I've been meaning to try, and your post pushed me ahead.

Steve

Yes, I enlarged the hole in the bottom of the pot to 1". I use a die grinder with a worn out bit. It olny takes a few seconds. A rasp file would work too. I wonder if making the hole bigger would give you an even looser ripple? Lots of variations to try.
When there is just a thin string of glass flowing out of the bottom, I put on my heavy denim jacket, leather gloves and my face shield, then reach in with a large pair of pliers and remove the pot and take it outside to crack and fall apart. Don't forget to close the lid on the kiln.
Let's see some pictures.

Randy

OK Randy,

Here are my photos........

http://www.clearwaterglass.com/aperture_pour_test.htm

Steve

Randy, this is my first post on the new board, so hope this works ? I tried your pot melt last nite. I didn't hold it long enought so it was not finished dripping, I flashed cooled it and cracked the glass, and learned lots. I didn't know that the glass would react like paint at that high a temp. ie, the colors blend and turn to a mud color. But the design was interesting. I will try again but with only one color glass and clear. Thanks for all your info, I enjoy trying new things. Pam

Great work Randy! Are you going to post the slumped one

Allen and Dinah

This in another yellow one I made, not the one pictured in the beginning of this thread. It's 11.5" in diameter. After the initial firing, I popped the air bubbles and filled them with a small chip of clear glass and some clear powder and fired again. When I slumped it something strange happened. The glass picked up a subtle texture, sort of like the end grain of a weathered tree stump. I imagine it's because the black and yellow soften at a different temprature. An unexpected but welcome surprise.

Randy

Allen, when are you and Dinah stopping by to see it?

It looks great Randy! Dinah and I will be by on Monday. I'm feeling better today , but don't want to push it.

We are firing today. I'll bring some of it over tomorrow.

Allen and Dinah