Arnold Howard on tue 20 sep 05
From: "Adrian Bruce"
I would like to start a recycling project for some of our neighborhood
kids, making cheese trays out of bottles since that's what we mainly
pick-up while attempting to keep our neighborhood clean.
Is anyone holding a general weekend training session for this?
---------------
Adrian, slumping glass bottles requires very little training. You will
probably be successful the first time you try it. Here are basic
instructions for ceramic kilns:
Use glass separator to protect the shelves from the glass. (Kiln wash also
works.) Place the glass onto the shelves, or on molds designed for bottle
slumping. The molds will require small holes so that air can escape as the
glass bends. At the slightest cracking or peeling of separator or kiln wash,
apply a fresh coat.
You must be able to see the glass as it bends. You should position the
bottles so you can see them through peepholes. Shut off the kiln when the
glass has bent to the degree that you want. As a starting point, you could
fire a bottle to cone 016.
Cooling usually must be slow from 1100 degrees F. to 700 degrees F, which is
the annealing range. The smaller the project, the faster the glass can cool
through that temperature range. Small earrings, for example, can be taken
out of the kiln and left on the shelf within 15 minutes after fusing. Cast
glass, on the other hand, takes days to cool.
If the glass cracks, slow down the firing and cooling.
If you slump bottles together into a single piece, they must be of the same
brand. Otherwise they will probably break due to a difference in coefficient
of expansion.
Sincerely,
Arnold Howard
Paragon Industries, L.P., Mesquite, Texas USA
ahoward@paragonweb.com / www.paragonweb.com
| |
|
