Death of a plate..... but tried again with success!

Sharks vomit plate 1 with hole

Oh yeah..... there is no question, I killed my plate using Sharks Vomit 1 when I tried to slump it into the mold.  It is mostly due to the fact that I totally forgot that I needed to slow down the ramp up heat rate and so when the plate hit about 350deg C there was a muffled clang...well to be honest multiple clangy sounds and when I peeked into the peephole, there it sat.... in MANY parts.  I was not happy, indeed I was rather upset, but as they say... you learn much more from a mistake than you do from getting it right the first time.  I decided that because it was in pieces, I might as well ramp the temp right up and see if some of it will fuse back together.  In fact it did fuse back quite a bit, but left a little hole that I have decided would be a good spot to sit a marble ( I put a circle around the hole zone on the above pic).  The glass also somewhat dripped down the sides of the plate mold and I will have to grind that off.  I am still toying with the idea that I should re-fuse and then try slumping this one again.... just toying at the moment, but if I have to look at it too long like this, it shall feel some heat I promise you!  LOL

Being a big one for getting it right at least once, I decided to spend 4 hrs of my time yesterday to make up another fusing plate using my murrini again.  This time I tried to stick with half decent murrini (ie, not too many clear inclusions etc.) although they are still my rejected ones, I made sure they were as tightly packed as I could get them.  I even pulled some little stringer sized murrini to pop down the gaps and it really paid off.  The glass did not move around very much at all and the fuse came out lovely.  I slumped it late last night and got this beauty out of the kiln this arvo and now have a cute little square plate..... I love it!!!!

Sharks vomit 2 slumped into plate -  sweet success

I have now got a kiln full of  "testers" that I will see how they look when they come out before I think of using them in a larger plate size.  The handy thing is that I will be able to glue on some bails and voila.... instant pendant.  Hopefully they won't be too ugly to be worn and if they are, well I will keep them or donate them to someone who seed beads cabs or something fun like that.

Testers to see what happens in the kiln!

Have a fabulous week, this week is getting things done week for me....... YEAH!

Cheap home-made lampwork tools!!!!

I am not a tight person financially - not that I have much money I don't, but I reckon money is for using to make your life better, not to hoard away or wave in someone elses face in an attempt to prove how much better you are than others!!! Its purely a means to an end to me, probably why I will NEVER be a millionaire! But, when I have needed some lampwork tools I have managed to save a few bucks and come up with things that work really well for me (thanks to Leo my husbands help). These are definitely not professional or anything, but they work for me.

Firstly, after hearing me whinging about having no hot fingers and trying to work out a way to remove marbles from the last punti with leaving a bellybutton (punti mark) he spent a few minutes huddled in the back of the garage and then came out with these....... marble holders!!!! The marble purists wouldn't like the metal against the glass which could potentially cause marks, but given that my marbles are in no way professional I dont mind one bit. They are simply a pair of cheap stainless steel tweezers with two thin mandrels sort of soldered on with some wire wrapped around for strength at the join. Leo them just curled the ends over so they met and could hold a round object neatly between them.

The other tool he made me last night was a spoon press...... what is that you might well ask - well I had a request (from my Mum) to make a glass jam spoon after she saw my boro honey dippers and suggested that a set would look good. I tried making a spoon for the first time last night and this is what I used to make it with.

I bought two cheap stainless teaspoons from an asian supermarket and got Leo to stick them on the ends of another pair of tweezers so they could meet closely cupped togther. They worked really well, although I did have to squash the gather of glass a little to fit in between the spoons nicely.

For those wondering what the spoon looks like, here is a pic of the first one I made with the matching honey dipper. They are made from borosilicate glass (encased in clear, I don't want anyone eating off any dodgy metallic additives in the glass).

The camera battery has died, so sorry about the pic!