Float differences

[vblue]

Quick questions. I'm teaching a group of art teachers how to use their kilns and make project examples for their students.

I'm using 4"x4" sq. of BE.

The project I want them to do with fiber paper would really do better with a bigger size....but on a limited budget.

I know many of you use float glass. Here are my questions...........if I go to Lowes and get window glass would I have to worry about "tin sides" meeting and much different would the firing schedule be for full fuse float vs. BE?

Thanks,
Vernelle

[Morganica]

It's different glass, different fusing characteristics, and not necessarily consistent from manufacturer to manufacturer, so there are a lot of "it depends" in the responses..

Most likely, though, the schedule will be 50-100 degrees hotter, it will be more prone to devitrification, and it's a stiffer glass. That last means that it doesn't flow together quite as seamlessly as fusing glass, so you can see where different pieces join more than you would with fusible glass. It also takes longer to slump.

Doesn't mean it's a bad glass to try, just that you'll probably want to play around with it for awhile and get used to the differences before you teach with it.

[De Anza Art Glass Club]

Dragon Glass has some schedules online:
http://www.dragonglassmolds.com/fs.htm

I guess that to answer whether or not you have to worry about the tin side more details about your application might be required. Colors go on the non-tin side.

[Rick Wilton]

go to a glass shop to get the glass it'll likely be cheaper than lowes AND you can ask them if they have a tin light and mark the tin side.

Other wise pretty much what Morganica said

[Bert Weiss]

My testing puts float at softening and annealing about 80ºF hotter than Bullseye. But it doesn't get quite as soft, quite as fast. If you fire float to around 1480ºF with the air side down, the bottom will come out rough. If you put the tin side down, the bottom comes out smooth. If you put the tin side up, inside a bowl mold, in the places where the glass gets compressed, the tin will fog up. If you fire air side up, it comes out clean. So, in my work, the tinscope is critical to success. I also find that I can not cut float with a dry cutter, but I can cut Bullseye with one.

My float glass of choice is 10mm thick. I would never consider for a moment using glass thinner than 6mm. It takes too much heat to get thin glass it to soften.

[Alexis Dinno]

To add on to the collective wisdom shared already, Graham Stone's Firing Schedules for Glass are all based on float with adjustments given for various and sundry other glasses. Although I tend to work most with 6mm glass, I have had much success working with 3mm, 2mm and even 1mm glass (that would be microscope slides... slip covers go even thinner, to around 0.1mm if I recall) for various projects, mostly pertaining to pendants and slumped vessels. I think it depends on the specifics of your project, as mentioned before. There's a steeper learning curve with float, but the stuff is free to cheap, and you discover 'personalities' in a specific piece of glass—color, how tinny is that tin side, prone-ness to devitrification, surface scars, stiffness—and you may also discover preferences for these, and work your art around their expression.

[Morganica]

Like Ms. Alexis, I've certainly used float less than 6mm successfully (microscope slide covers are cheap and they make very nice casings for precious metal foil in pendants), so it's not so much will it work as it is how you make it work.

The chief difficulty with float glasses is that they're made for architectural/display purposes, not kiln use, so float manufacturers pay less attention to the stuff that fusible glass manufacturers are fanatical about: Devitrification after multiple firings, compatibility with other glasses, flowing/blending at relatively low levels of heatwork, consistency from batch to batch (well, float mfgs do worry about that, but not in the same way).

One thing to understand: Float is a broad category that describes a glassmaking process, not a specific brand of glass like Spectrum 96 or Bullseye fusible, so you can't really give a specific "float schedule" or "work it this way" instructions that are correct for every piece of float glass.

I pick up my glass free from salvage yards and I've gotten so I can spot some float formulations by the way the glass looks and behaves (the duller, greener glass is stiffer, needs a hotter schedule, and devits more than the brighter, bluer stuff, for example). But I still sort it into piles of similar color/thickness and test a small sample before using it on a big project.

So...if you're teaching with the stuff, you can make your life easier by picking one manufacturer's float glass, learning it well, and sticking with it. It's not the cheapest way to use float glass--especially since local glass supply places usually stock from more than one supplier and may not always bin pieces with the mfg's label (know this from sad experience)--but it goes a long way towards ensuring consistency with your students.

Float's not my favorite glass to work, it often does unexpected things...but it's hauntingly beautiful when you get the hang of it.

[KaCe]

Where I live there are glass shops that replace old windows and put in new. I ask for the large (8' x 5') storm windows and take off the aluminum that surrounds the glass. Perhaps you can find a business to partner with. Good luck. Oh, some places recycle glass at the dump and you might ask about that option.

[Morganica]

My favorite spots are store fixture resellers--they buy up the displays that stores discard when they're remodeling or going out of business and resell them at really great prices. They usually have a lot of chipped or broken glass shelves and doors that they'll give you just to avoid having to cart it off to the recycler's. Often it's 1-4 inches thick, which is otherwise very expensive and kinda hard to come by. Occasionally I've come across bronzed or smoked glass from the 70s, which can give very interesting effects in the kiln.

[vblue]

Thanks everyone for your replies. My class starts tomorrow BUT I have another one starting in Jan. (School district is having me teach groups of their art teachers fusing.)

I have plenty of time to practice and explore for the Jan. class, then have another in March.

I work in a stained glass shop. Someone brought in 5 old storm? windows a couple of weeks ago. I also have a student who runs a framing shop who brings us her scraps.

Being a retired science teacher from this same school district, I know that art teachers budgets are super small. Was just thinking that float glass and maybe glassline paints would give them some options.

I just tried the water trick. Used a pipette to drop water on float. One side seams to hold the drop where the other the water spreads out some. Does anyone use this trick? (Read it in the archives.....Tom and Tony) Now just need to find that post to see which is which.

Thanks everyone.....now to bookmark this page

Vernelle