Seam with white residue

[KaCe]

Hello All,

I finished my magless exchange and am on to my own project. I read with interest that Cynthia sanded her edges…so I thought if it was good for her, I'd do it too. I am questioning how clean I got the edges though. I have a white residue in the seam. I'm not sure what it is or why it happened. I thought I'd post here and see if I can get any solutions. One thing I thought of was to sandblast the seam and fill it will powdered grit in the same color.

I cleaned my glass with borax powder, rinsed well, dried well. There were tiny spaces of about 1/64" along one edge and perhaps 1/32 on a couple edges. I'll attach a photo of the layup, a photo of a typical whitish mark and a close up of the mark. The black glass is very reflective and there are a number of white specks but these do not show on the real glass… I'm not sure why they show in the photo.

Thank you any suggestions on how to prevent it in the future and how to resolve it now.

KaCe

[Morganica]

Sanded my edges? I do that for the actual edges, especially if I'm going to firepolish, and I clean them well. I don't typically do it for seams I want to join...maybe I'm misunderstanding?

[Valerie Adams]

I seldom grind because it causes the roughened glass to trap the tiniest bits of scum which can be hard to scrub away, especially if left to dry. This scum fires on and is commonly seen around the edges of pendants that people grind to shape. I believe it's even more apparent if the pieces are fire-polished on Thinfire.

Your white spots don't necessarily look like grinder scum though. The close up photos would make me think it was a bit of stuck on kilnwash but I know you didn't fire this face down (unless you did first, and then flipped and fired?).

I use Sharpie paint pen water-based markers to mark my glass before cutting. I especially like using a yellow marker since I can see it on darker colors. If I don't clean it off well it fires as white. Is there something you're using to mark your glass?

Lastly, Borox contains some kind of flux I believe. If it wasn't rinsed off well enough, perhaps that's part of the problem.

[Stephen Richard]

Borax is the flux. If you are using washing powder borax there may be additives that leave a residue. I would not be washing with borax in any case.

[Barry Kaiser]

Borax is the flux. If you are using washing powder borax there may be additives that leave a residue. I would not be washing with borax in any case.

Been doing this for many years Steve. Find the 20 mule team borax method works as well as the commercial product. Have no problem with any residue.

Barry

[KaCe]

I know of number of people have recommended it. I did say Borax, but meant BonAmi. Sorry. But I believe them to be about the same. I was trying to stay away from the commercial spray cleaners and didn't have any BE cleaner. I wonder if there is some sort of a build up abrasive on the edge that was hard and I didn't rub it well enough? Not sure just what is amiss.

KaCe

[KaCe]

@ Cynthia,

No, it was I who totally misunderstood. When you said in a recent post that you always sand your edges, I (and only I) assumed you meant all your edges, not just the outer ones. <laughing to myself now. what a dumb sh.. ) Sometimes trying hard to improve means taking things the wrong way... which I did. So I sanded a lot of edges, unnecessarily; got white scum of some sort and now want to see if I can fix it.

I've asked if anyone has ever sandblasted an area then filled it with frit powder, but no one has answered. I think I'll try it, as what do I have to loose?

KaCe

[jkglassworks]

could you go at it with a diamond bit on a Dremel (if you have one). then fill in or full fuse again and it will even out

[charlie]

[quote="KaCe"]I know of number of people have recommended it. I did say Borax, but meant BonAmi. Sorry. But I believe them to be about the same. I was trying to stay away from the commercial spray cleaners and didn't have any BE cleaner. I wonder if there is some sort of a build up abrasive on the edge that was hard and I didn't rub it well enough? Not sure just what is amiss.

KaCe[/quote]

Bon Ami is NOT borax. it has no borax in it at all. it's also slightly abrasive.

http://angelgilding.com/media/products/ ... _A2533.pdf

[KaCe]

Joanne,
That's sorta what I was thinking. I'd just using sandblasting instead of a dremel. I will post later to let you know if it removed the problem. (I have two-three days of commitments before I can try it, so hopefully I'll get my large job done so I can try this solution.) Have you done anything like what you suggested?
KaCe