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Hi Laurie,

I found that really rinsing the haik brush after washing shelves reduced the amount of hair lost from the brush. If the brush dries with lots of kiln wash in it then the hairs seem to break off when the brush is next used.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Bob

I agree with David and others who think the piece in the photo makes a nice composition. What about a tack fuse instead of silicon glue. It would require a slow ramp through the brittle zone to avoid thermal shock. The fringe along the base would also be preserved.

Cheers,

Bob

Great work Tim,

I enlarged the image and saw that your lines are perfectly aligned and symmetrical. Incredible detail.

Cheers,

Bob

Hi Barry, I've bought a lot of moulds through Bullseye and some have come with the recommendation to prefire it and some have not . It seems like the simple shape smaller moulds didn't have the recommendation ( I did buy them a long time ago) but the larger more complex shapes have come with the rec...

valentines day pres from the hubster lol <3

Diamonds are a girl's best friends.

Cheers,
Bob

Hi Jennifer,

The kiln gods are not in a good mood. I would have thought the schedule you used should work. Did the piece break after it came out of the kiln or during cool down? It looks like the two halves would fit together to make a properly shaped bowl.
This is a tough one!

Cheers,

Bob

Hi Janet, No they aren't. I did not submit a proposal. The selected entries were absolutely amazing. Paintings 9x5 feet, crows stealing eye glasses beside books mounted on the walls, bronze letter with rabbit crawling through a hole in the letter. All amazing works that involved much of the communit...

Thanks everyone, Sorry Les, didn't read any of them. They were just chosen for size and shape. I did judge the book just by the size and thickness. My recent readings have been Infidels by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Einstein: His Life and Universe and Steven Jobs both by Walter Isaacson, and a bunch of thrill...

A wonderful new library recently opened where we live on Salt Spring Island and there was a call for art work to occupy walls and display areas. I didn't enter the competition but I thought quite a bit about what I would have done. I initially thought of making bookends but the idea kept morphing. E...

Hi Alyssa, I don't know if this is relevant or current so take it for what it is worth. In the early days of the WGBB Lani discussed the striping that can appear with opal glass. She noted that when you look at the top surface of a sheet of glass it was one consistent colour. However when you looked...

Hi Susan, Yes you can peek into the kiln without messing up the schedule... with a few provisos. If you are in a soak segment the temperature will drop somewhat when you open the lid because the warm kiln air is venting out of the kiln. When the lid is closed the temperature generally rises above th...

Hi Babs, Take the glass piece with the bubble and lay it on a flat surface. Does the non bubbled part lie flat or does in lift on two corners or sides? If the glass is warped then the shelf may have warped during firing and the glass is recording the shape of the kiln shelf at elevated temperature. ...

Hi Franzeska, You can prop the lid slightly open with a thin kiln post and open the peep hole to help vent the kiln. Wait until the kiln is down to 500F to do this. If the projects are coasters and 8" plates then the increased cooling rate should not harm the projects. Do not wash the projects ...

Interesting interpretation Stephen, I agree that the differential heating between the top of the piece and the bottom is the likely culprit and we both are suggesting a slower ramp rate to get heat into the glass. But I still think that viscosity plays a role. In both your example and Jennifer's the...

Hi Jennifer, Spectacular tear in the glass. I agree with the comments that it is thermal shock and that it happened on the way up. I'd like to speculate on several reasons why it shocked. The bottom is french vanilla which is a very stiff glass. The top is steel blue which , because of the dark colo...

Hi Bert, Good points. The reason I suggested the blank be slightly large than the mould is that once the piece is slumped the edge will be at or inside the mould. You get the largest glass piece possible for the shape of the mould. If the slump is at the lowest temperature possible then the thin rim...

Hi Seachange, Lovely shape. Here are a couple of suggestions: 1) start out using float glass to get the glass size prior to slumping right. Don't worry about annealing them ... they are tests only. 2) The glass will stretch while it slumps so for a first pass I would cut the glass about 1/4 inch lon...

Hi yet again David,

Here is a link to one supplier for a Rod Pod;

http://fusedglasswarehouse.com/Straight ... egoryId=-1

Just in case you want to pursue the possibility.

Cheers,

Bob

Hi again David, I am assuming that you are lampworking the rod made in the vitrograph kiln to get the delicate branches for your trees. Have you tried making your rods in a "rod pod" (I think that is what they were called) rather than the vitrograph? They used to be in the Bullseye Catalog...

Hi David, I have seen several projects where opaque white white has cracked during firing. One has been discussed in the photo section ... see Cave Art by Babette (Shawn) posted Dec 1. She remade the piece with white 0113 and there wasn't any problem cracking. Shawn has posted Bullseye's response to...