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With what I have been making recently, I have been wanting the side that was on the kiln shelf in full fuse to become the top/inside of the finished piece. I have been having a terrible time with surface defects when I try to flip and fire polish. I am cleaning the glass super well with soap and water, and sometimes then alcohol, but still gets scummy when I try to fire polish. Anyone do this without a problem? Should I use thinfire instead of straight on the shelf for less potential contamination? I would love any tips, this has been a coldworking nightmare.

lissa.

i get heavy devit or scum on surfaces that have been down for the first full fusing. i've found a very light sandblast will clean it up on the next firepolish.

Unfortunately I have no sandblaster. I took it to someone who does have one and he said if we sandblasted it, even with a firepolish the effects of the sandblasting would remain. Perhaps he just has a very coarse grit?

lissa.

no. i use 120 grit AlO2. i use 1325 to firepolish. it all goes away. if you use 1225, you get a very fine matte finish. here's an example of both in one. the leaves were blasted and firepolished to 1325. the outside was remasked and recut, then blasted and then fired to matte at 1225

Wow, so I can get it back to full gloss? Great. He assured me that that wasn't possible, but I see folks mention that technique here from time to time so I had been wondering. Now I just need to find someone to sandblast for a decent fee. Thanks so much Charlie.

lissa.

You could sandblast with cannon balls and still smooth it out if you go hot enough, so definitely yes, it will work. I fire and flip alot and have not had problems, and don't regularly blast. I fire on paper, and before refiring scrub it down well, and borax, and I get nice glossy surfaces.

Tony, you use borax for a fire polish? or are you going back up to full fuse? Using paper makes sense, too. Thanks for your help.

lissa

When I flip, it's for fairly thick (3/4") pieces, so I am going back up to full fuse using a dam. The borax is more of a precaution, rationale being that if I don't need it it doesn't hurt, but if I get devit it means more work and another firing. With the big pieces every firing involves alot of finger crossing, so I minimize the number of kiln rides as best I can. On smaller 2 layer work, I fire face down, then flip and slump, often to temps that fire polish, and without boraxing have had no problems with these. These experiences are mainly limited to Spectrum, and I have not done some of these things with Bullseye.

yes, i forgot to state this is all b.e. also, i have used borax to solve this too instead of blasting, although on the above example, borax on irid doesn't work well. put on the borax before the firepolish, although i've had better results with borax at fusing than firepolishing temps.

You can try flip and fire having fired on thinfire in the first fuse. Typically that's enough for me, but sometimes I still need to sandblast.

Barbara

Charlie,

That piece is beautiful!

Sharon

Hey Charlie: Absolutely awesome plate - love it!!!!
very cool......