Using Terra Cotta for catching pot melts.

[CMWarren]

I have a small, tabletop kiln with an 8x8x6 chamber and a controller, and I have been using garden variety terra cotta planter trays with holes chiseled into them to allow me to potmelt into stainless steal pyramid molds (with one layer of kiln paper against the mold, and then 1/16th inch fiber paper after that, which prevents the glass from sticking, even if it gets through the single seam *i cut the kilnpaper as hexagons and fold it into a pyramid, and the fiber paper as four triangles together making a pacman shape*) and it works great.

one thing I have noticed is that once the glass has melted, and no longer seems to want to flow, once you anneal it, it makes a double thick puddle of glass still in the pot melt tray that doesnt, at least with the ones i buy, stick to the glass all that much *there are always a few spots you have to scrap off with a diamond pad*. I have been taking them off the pot melt tray (which often cracks), and putting them in an old 5 ib bullseye frit jar for possible use in future peices.

my question is if I kiln wash a second tray, and place it under the one with the glass for pot melting, do you think that another terracotta tray might work for catching pot melts, and giving them a round apperance?

my plan was to elevate the terracotta tray on kiln post so air can circulate over it, use two kiln dams to set on top of it, maybe four to make sure there is enough space for it to fall and spread out, then place the pot melt tray on top.

I wanted to see what others might think about this, or if they have more experince with using terra cotta in their glass working that might be useful to know about.

[jim burchett]

I have often used the trays that they sell for the clay pots to potmelt into....kilnwash really well and melt into them works pretty well but the edges are usually not straight so sme cold w.orking or refusing is required...but they make a cheap way to get a round melt.

[CMWarren]

I find, since I cant use a proper terra cotta pot, only the trays, that once the glass gets to a certain thickness, it stops flowing because of the lack of enough gravity of glass pushing down. what I currently have in my kiln is the leftover glass from my last potmelt, that cracked into large peices, and I pulled them out, puzzled them back together on my kiln shelf, and put course clear frit, and some colored fine frit in the hole where it melted down into, and refused it all into a solid full fused peice. going to take it out tommarow, and see how it looked, because the patterns you get in the potmelt tray once it cant flow anymore are really bueatiful. meaning, I could get two peices out of a firing, i just have to fire once more, and firepolish.