New Farm Animals; New Hobo Signs

Jeez, I've got new pendants going on already! Clearly I didn't have enough farm spirited designs before, so I had to go make some more up! There's an awful lot of bunnies, and no it isn't because of Easter haha. I just happened to find a fantastic source for different bunny poses, so who could resist?

Along with that, you can see that some of the black tiles have neat little stick drawings on them (cough, that means not the black tiles with horses). Those, my friends, are called hobo signs, and they're part of a project I'm working on. Each sign has a different meaning, and homeless people use them as a means to help guide each other through their respective towns. They do chalk images so that they can be changed at any time (I assume), because some of the labels are much more serious than mine. They can signify dangerous zones where you should run away as soon as possible, or areas where you should be prepared for a fight if you stick around.

My symbols mean the following (from left to right of the first image);
Top Hat: Gentleman
Two Vertical Lines: Sky's The Limit
Two Circles: Don't Give Up
Cat: Kind Lady
Circle with an X: OK To Hang Out (May Get Food)

Thur March 21, 2013
Mercedes
1) 1 ↑ 760°
2) 11 @ 760°
3) 12 ↓ 516°
4) 1:12 @ 516°
5) 1:30 ↓ 390°
6) 1:31 ↓ 50°

To be perfectly frank I can't remember the exact annealing cycle I used for these pendants, but I do know that I sent it to 760° - which is the important part to me. I don't quite like how rounded they are. Paul commented that there's something nice, almost more professional about the pendants that are still squared off. Not only that, but at this temperature the glass started grabbing at the kiln wash/ kiln shelf and the backsides all need a quick run on the polishing dremel. The other pieces didn't need it nearly so much.

Tweet

Fusing Recycled Glass; Green Test; Firing Pendants

This firing had a few different things going on inside of it.

First; a small run of regular green farm pendants, so I can appropriately note the firing temperatures.

Second; I want to do a series of farm-friendly words that are green powder on clear glass. Roxy let me try out two of her colors. The one on the left is Dense Green (RW 75) (also known as 'Medium Green Yellow on Colour Fusion) - I love it, but it's too limey for this specific intent. I really want to keep track of this color for later though! The color on the right was Celadon Green (G 135) - I suppose I underestimated how delicate the color was and didn't put nearly enough on, so you can barely even see it!

I'm glad Roxy let me test run her powder, because RW 75 was the exact color I was going to try for! The solid glass version looks just like my green farm sheet glass. Either that, or the label is wrong, I won't know for a long time haha.

Third; When I popped into the charging room one day I found a beautiful sheet of fused glass, one that Paul didn't like and was just going to chuck into the furnace. For Gaffers (our fundraising group at school), I cut up the glass and threw it into a kiln so we could make some neat, recycled pendants!

I should note that this glass was so thick from being fused together that I couldn't score and cut it - I ended up taking it to the wet saw and just slicing it up at random.

As you can see there's no holes in them yet. This is just after I pulled them out of the annealer so they were still warm.

The annealing schedule, unfortunately, is completely unusable! I didn't realize it for a long time, but I hadn't properly shut the door of the Large Paragon, so the kiln kept giving up at about 500 degrees and crashing back down. I thought the poor annealer was on it's last legs or something, and I kept changing the max temperature and sending it up and up and up (of course it wasn't actually going up). The last schedule I was on before figuring out my issue was;

Wed March 20 / Thur March 21, 2013
Large Paragon
1) AFAP ↑ 770° for 40 min

- and then I checked on the kiln and holy moly it was hot hot hot! Everything looked plenty melted so I just crashed that baby right down to 516° and ran it on a regular annealing cycle.

Unfortunately for me, the Large Paragon has crappy digitry, and many of the little lights are burnt out, so I don't know exactly what temperature it was at, or if it was at 770 and had been on hold for a little while.

Tweet

Citrus Test 3

This was my third test with my citrus pieces. They're lined up nicely now on 1.5" squares, though that may be a bit big. It's been brought to my attention that I should really try drill pressing out circles instead - so I will.

The black I used was RW54 black and it reduced, unfortunately. Looks like I can't use it in the future, unless maybe I put a layer of clear glass on the colored sheet glass. Double the glass is double the cost though, so I'd rather not have to. I'm going to try G50 black next time.

Wed. Feb 27, 2013
Italian
1)   300 ↑ 1275° for 10 min
2) 9999 ↓ 900° for 60 min
3)   100 ↓ 700° for 01 min
4) 9999 ↓ 70° for 0 min

This schedule can't exactly be trusted - at all - because the Italian misfires by at least 60° - Megan believes it could be as high as 200° off though.

Tweet

Fusing Cracks

I pulled this schedule out of my head to help out a firstie in need. Her beautiful casting had cracked, and was due in a few days. I know that her cracks were successfully healed, and that her sides did not bulge out, despite the fact that they were exposed. I do not, however, have photo documentation, because in all her eagerness she pulled her piece out while it was still a wee bit hot, and put it on the table where it, of course, promptly cracked and broke. Oops!

And in case this information is important in the future, we fuse this piece while it was face down in the sand, not face up.

Mon Feb 18, 2013
Kiln 1
1) 08 ↑ 745°
2) 8:20 @ 745°
3) 8:21 ↓ 516°
4) 11:33 @ 516°
5) 16 ↓ 390°
6) 17 ↓ 50°

Tweet

Molds With Very Different Results!

Always, always, always remember to increase the size of the hole in a flower pot. Seriously. It will otherwise destroy Everything! This will be a very, very long post.

Diptych

I took out after first firing, wasn't melted completely copacetic-ly. The needles sticking out didn't turn out very well, I think the glass couldn't melt in. The back edges were a bit rough. I need to remake this, promised Orion I would. (<- That never happened.)

Bubble Bowl
You can see the wax here.

There was a horrendous amount of plaster bits trapped underneath the glass balls, the solution? Soak the plaster, then use the sandblaster's high-pressure air hose to get that crap out!

The pattern - considering it had been uniformly spread across the entire surface, came out very, unique?

You can see the wax here.

Bowl with Square Patterns: It looks happy, but I'm not. Mold was clearly not level, if it had been perhaps it would have at least filled in.

Pass The Time

This came out a little shorter than it should have. In the future I'll have to really over-exaggerate dot/hole/circle textures. The paper towel texture on the other side is neat, but made the surface a little more opaque than I thought it would have.

Note for the future: I should cast something like this in an open faced mold, so there will be an automatic clear/transparent surface opposite of the textured surface.

Unconscious

This came out just a wee bit shorter than I wanted, but I guess it's okay. I started off hating it, but the longer I lived with it, the more I fell in love.

Kiln 4 Program
1) 04 hrs @ 25º
2) 07 hr ↑ 90º
3) 33 hr ↑ 120º
4) 38 hr ↑ 600º
5) 40 hr @ 600º
6) 40:01 hr ↑ 850º
7) 50 hr @ 850º
8) 50:01 hr ↓ 516º
9) 66 hr @516º
10) 98 hr ↓ 360º
11) 124 hr ↓ 50º

That schedule is basically the same schedule I used for my kiln bowls, minus one drying step. After firing - and seeing the lack of filled molds, I had considered that the holes in the flower pots were too small, but between four different people I received four different theories on what went wrong (some including too short/cold of a melt time, and not enough weight to force the glass down). So, instead of drilling the flower pot holes larger, I sent my kiln back up A.S.A.P. and even threw extra glass into each flower pot when they were at full melt.

Kiln 4 - Round Two!
1) 10 hr ↑ 515º
2) 15 hr @ 515º
3) 15:01 hr ↑ 850º
4) 30 hr @ 850º
5) 30:01 hr ↓ 516º
6) 46 hr @516º
7) 78 hr ↓ 360º
8) 104 hr ↓ 50º

Tweet

Cozy & Aggravating

Cozy

When I poured the plaster-silica mold onto Cozy, it leaked out the bottom enough so that the tip of my object wasn't covered. This edge was noticeable on the final piece and was coldworked off.
 
The glass was a mixture of clear and coloured frit. It was a red/pink/orangeish frit that was labelled Salmon Pink, and I believe it was supposed to be Salmon Pink Striker Opal (0305) - it turned out to be a rather hideous and blotchy colour scheme. <- Frit reacts oddly in kilncasting.

The colors peeved me off so much that I sand blasted the piece so it would have a softer look and feel to it.

Note: I should thoroughly mix coloured frit with clear frit.

Aggravating

i failed to mix enough plaster for this mold, but it all turned out okay anyway. The issue with a clay reservoir (which was unnecessary), was that I wrapped the clay around the wax, and thus had to coldwork it down just right.

I threw in extra cullet during the melt that was unnecessary, and hot!

For glass I used a random large black/purple frit and clear cullet.

Pictures of the finished pieces are here.


Kiln 05 Program

01) 03 hr ↑ 95° (drying)
02) 08 hr ↑ 120° (drying)
03) 14 hr @ 120°
04) 20 hr ↑ 600°
05) 21 hr @ 600°
06) 21.01 hr ↑ 850°
07) 29 hr @ 850°
08) 29.01 hr ↓ 515°
09) 36 hr @ 515°
10) 50 hr ↓ 390°
11) 60 hr ↓ 50° (room temperature)

Tweet