by AinsleyFrancis | Dec 7, 2008 | Firing Program, Glass Blowing, Hot Shop, Kilncasting, Pâte de Verre
For the Bowl, the wax mold was attached to a clay reservoir. The weight of the wax was 192g, and by water displacement, equivalent to 571g of clear System 96 furnace pellets, and I used that glass in the mold.
For the goblet Stem, the wax mold was again attached to a clay reservoir. The mold was 4.5″ x 5″, poured into a plastic pineapple container. The wax weighed 89g, and was equivalent to 270g of furnace pellets, for the casting, I used 275 clear cullet, and 20g powder (Colour RW HP229).
Both molds were poured and steamed on December 1st, and Firing started on December 1st in Kiln #4 on the following schedule:
1. 3:00 – 150
2. 15:00 @ 150
3. 22:00 – 515
4. 25:00 – 600
5. 25:01 – 875
6. 30:00 @ 875
7: 30:01 – 515
8. 38:01 @ 515
9. 55:01 – 400
10. 68:00 – 50
More pictures are available here:
The goblet stem was picked up in the hotshop on December 9th, it was sent up to 515C over the course of 5 hours, then soaked for one hour, then sent up to 560C before being picked up and attached to a bubble and re-annealed on a normal annealing schedule for blown work in our studio.
by AinsleyFrancis | Oct 7, 2008 | Firing Program, Kilncasting, Lost Wax, Pâte de Verre
The mold for this bowl was an open-faced, lost wax plaster silica hand-built mold. I made silica molds of real star anise, and took wax impressions from those molds and attached them to a blank wax bowl. The wax was approximately 2.5″ X 5″. After the mold was built and steamed, there were quite a few really bad undercuts, where the plaster had filled in between the anise and the bowl, so I cleaned those up as best I could. The mold was approximately 2″ thick throughout. The mold was built on September 28th, and Steamed on October 3rd, 2008.
On October 5th, I packed the mold with System 96 powdered glass in the following colours:
1. Light Amber 5 clear : 2 colour
2. Gold Brown – 8 clear : 2 colour
3. Black Transparent – 5 clear : 2 colour
The mold was fired on October 6th, with the following pate-de-verre fusing schedule:
More details and pictures are available in the attached Picasa album.
I will re-make this bowl, as during the firing, the pate-de-verre slumped and pulled away from the edges of the mold, making the upper edge of the bowl rough and fragile. Also, a lot of plaster was fused into the glass, and is impossible to remove.
