Page 1 of 1

freeze and fuse in a condom

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 3:14 pm
by Kate Saunders
I've only done the traditional method of freeze and fuse once, in an eye cube tray, but now I'm wondering if it would work with a condom filled with the glass powder slurry?
Believe it or not, I've used condoms filled with plaster as a mold quite a bit. The condom's original shape gets lost and I get nice organic round plaster object. In the freeze and fuse condom I'd only fill it a little bit and squeeze it into a roundish shape, for perhaps a 2 inch object. I know I could just give it a try, but I hate to waste a day of kiln time for an utter disaster and I know some of you have done a lot of freeze and fuse work. Thanks!

Re: freeze and fuse in a condom

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 8:16 pm
by Morganica
Well, it works with balloons, so I don't see why not. Balloons are a good way to get solid inside and outside curves when you're building up plaster/silica mold forms, and a balloon is essentially a condom, albeit more comfortable. (I'd imagine)

I'm not a huge fan of freeze-n-fuse, mostly because it seems like a lot of work for a shape that I can get easier with a mold, but I have used balloons to freeze spheres of different frit tints. I was playing around with embedding pate de verre cores in transparent billet castings, so I cast clear halves with scooped-out centers. Then I made up frit tints, packed them into balloons as tightly as I could get them and kept going until they filled the casting centers.

Then I froze them. I figured the water in the fritballs would expand, making them a bit too big for the holes, and that would allow the extra air between frit particles to escape, the top half of the casting would come down and push out the air, and I'd wind up with the right amount of pate de verre floating in the middle. Stuck the fritballs in the holes, clapped on the tops with some chads on the edges to prevent them from sealing too fast, and recast.

Didn't work--still trapped too much air and the spheres distorted a bit (I was young and foolish)--but the frozen-frit-in-balloon thing did OK.

Re: freeze and fuse in a condom

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 4:00 pm
by Kate Saunders
Cynthia,
Many thanks for your response! I am a mere babe to casting, so your advice will go a long way. I've used condoms in the past with plaster, so I can pour a lot of plaster
into them and get the condom to stretch out a bit, which balloons won't do. But with this freeze and fuse, I really only need a little round ball so I think I'll go on a scouting expedition for little round balloons. Doubtlessly I'll have less breakage with balloons then I would with condoms. When I was using condoms and plaster on a regular basis I would have to occasionally take an ax to my studio floor to break up all the hardened plaster. Drove my husband nuts since his office used to be directly below my studio. Anyway, thanks for
the advice.
Kate

Re: freeze and fuse in a condom

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 4:28 am
by Mark Kemp
Balloons usually have some release agent inside, like corn starch or talc, so they don't stick together. I don't know if that would affect the glass, if it weren't rinsed out. Other than that, I can't see why either wouldn't work.

Re: freeze and fuse in a condom

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:18 pm
by Valerie Adams
Depending on the size you need, there are lots of round molds online. I Googled round ice molds:
images.jpg
images.jpg (5.16 KiB) Viewed 10596 times

Re: freeze and fuse in a condom

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:31 pm
by Kate Saunders
Cool ice molds, I'm ON it! Thanks!

Re: freeze and fuse in a condom

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:38 pm
by Kate Saunders
So the round ice cube mold has been ordered, but I may still try fuse and freeze with balloons too. I'd prefer to have a slightly imperfect, more organic, shape to my form. But I'll give it a try! If nothing else I'll have cool ice cubes.