I was doing what I thought would be a straight forward, benign raking yesterdtay and I guess I let my guard down. The "kiln gremlins" came to play ard reminded me exactly what kind of dragon I'm messing with.Single layer Spectrum white base, two layer black boarder, random scattering of blue transparent Spectrum to simulate sky with a design in the middle; should have been a walk in the park.
The places in the white base where there wasn't any blue bubbled with a passion. Typically, bubbles in a comb aren't much of a problem to manage; just pull some near by glass into it and it's over. Well, because there was only a single layer of base glass to work with, when I pulled it into the bubble, I left a thin spot for another bubble to form. I spent an hour chasing bubbles around this piece, 9 X 12, before I realize I had already lost the battle.
So, I figured, "what have I got to loose?" And that's a bad thing to say with a piece like this. I need more glass? Well, toss in a piece, which I did. It was about 5 X 7 Spectrum 96, I laid it in carefully and closed the kiln door; JUST IN TIME! I heard the explosion from outside. Putting roon temperature glass on top of 1650 glass wasn't too smart, DUHHHHH!
Well I was able to pull some if it back into the piece and actually beat out some of the bubbles; SOME of them. So, I figured, "what have I got to loose?" (I never learn) This time I added a spoon of Thompson's enamel to the mix and that actually worked. The bubbles are beat even if I've got this glob of color I can't do anything with. Then I remembered: This color of Thompson's has a COE of 90! Well, the mess in the kiln this morning made me want to take up underwater basket weaving. Between what was on the shelf, STUCK to the shelf, FRACTURED on the shelf, and the stuff I had to pull out of the walls of the kiln from the explosion, I realized, when it all goes wrong, even the wheels fall off.
Guess I'll go exorcise those gremlins and see what new and creative ways there are to foul things up.
Jerry
