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!

The 104coe murrini fusing experiment..... SUCCESS!

Well despite my concerns about fusing the miriad of murrini (I quite like how that rolls off the tongue... Miriad of Murrini.... yeah!)  I opened the kiln lid this morning to some sweet success!  Both sides of the piece were really cool with the bottom side maintaining the integrity of the pattern where the murrini sat against the clear glass:

And then there was the top side where the different glass sort of moved around a bit an squidgied the top of the pictures.  Green and Blue glass seems to be really prone to this moving around in a very viscous (not vicious) fashion, I am sure the techno-types out there would be able to say exactly why, but for me, sometimes I really like it and sometimes ....er.... not!

Here's a pic of the top side and you can see the distortion to the pics, and yet I still think it is pretty damn cool!

The next job will be to try slumping this into a plate mold, which I am now a bit nervous about given that I do not want to ruin this glass now its worked out so far.  I could be conservative and try with some other glass first...... but NAHHHH I will stick my neck out, scoff at the danger (danger of buggering it up that is) and dip my foot into the slumping waters...... ok, now I have slightly scared myself!

Have a wonderful day everyone, its sunny, warm and fabulous here in Sydney right now..... I am loving life!

Collabaration - different glass, another butterfly

Hmmmm, a great friend of mine Gail is very VERY talented at fusing and slumping and we are thinking of forming a team and collaborating to make some really interesting glassy things. I will still of course be sticking to beads and murrini as my core business, but the idea of making some larger and more unusual glass bits and pieces really sounds fabulous to me.

At the moment we need some planning time to get all our ideas down and form some sort of a priority listing so we have some goals rather than just run about ooooohing and aaaahing about our combined wisdom and mad schemes (we are both a bit the same, the crazier the better and we feed off each others enthusiasm)

My part of the "collab" will involve me making some complex murrini and small componentry in 96coe which should be compatible with the glass sheet Gail uses and to be honest a lot of the real skill will most likely be how she does her end. Thus far my only slumping efforts have been restricted to some bottles to make platters and "cabifying" dodgy beads (melting a cleaned up bead into a cabochon). In the week leading up to the move and sticking with my comfort zone I made quite a nice orange butterfly cane which I left as a graduated large diameter rod so that different sized slices can be cut..... all larger for the larger project, but some variety of size. Here's the pic of a rough slice of the finished cane. The great thing is that if I saw up the scrappy ends we will end up with some really cool fusing slices (half and quarter wings etc.).

Interestingly enough, I found it quite difficult not to pull down some of the cane for bead-sized butterflies..... Just habit I am sure!

Now..... I MUST go sort out some of my lampworking garage space and search further for beads.......aaaaaarrrrrrgggh!