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I've wanted to try sand in the kiln for over a year. Finally had the time and info and pieces to use. I just did a tester yesterday, I am thrilled! I just did some scroll designs with a sharpie and I am amazed at how much detail is retained. I don't understand how the glass doesn't mush the sand down. The finish is beautiful, I'm head over heels!

Way too fun, off to do a real one....

Cindy next door wrote:I've wanted to try sand in the kiln for over a year. Finally had the time and info and pieces to use. I just did a tester yesterday, I am thrilled! I just did some scroll designs with a sharpie and I am amazed at how much detail is retained. I don't understand how the glass doesn't mush the sand down. The finish is beautiful, I'm head over heels!

Way too fun, off to do a real one....

I saw this piece at the bus stop this morning, and let me tell you - it's just fantastic. Cindy poked into the sand about 1/4" deep with the back of her marker in a pattern of little curls - looks like catipillers, and the look she got was so cool. Can't wait to see what she does with it!! Go Cindy.

Pictures, PICTURES

Cindy:
I have been wanting to try this also - I have one question, okay this might be elementary but here goes - how do you get the sand back out of the kiln???

I am assuming you'd just use a wet vac?

perplexed girl
Kim

Jackie,
I was not sure at first.. you said you were in love.. and you were referring to the girl next door, and also meeting her at the bus stop. That usually happens to school aged guys....

then I read and found out it was about the work that she did....


I second the motion... pics.... of the work.... or jackie.. of your special friend, the girl next door... sorry... could not resist...

Having never been a school-aged guy, Stewart, I can't attest to what may or may not happen to them . . . but I've got a fairly good idea. They think all girlfriends have sleepovers in baby-doll pjs and pillow fights with lots of jumping on the bed. You are suffering from the "grown-up" version of that right now, I think.

glassaddict wrote:Cindy:
I have been wanting to try this also - I have one question, okay this might be elementary but here goes - how do you get the sand back out of the kiln???

I just took my kiln shelf out, scooped out most of it, then used a ruler to get the thinner layer and then finally a brush. All with my mask on of course - I'm a safety girl

Thanks Cindy!!

I made it to save it out of the kiln, he was being reflattened for his next experiment.

http://community.webshots.com/album/119541327lUjCeo

Worms from pens. Big fun isn't it. Essentially you reach for the nearest object and start pressing. Today, for me it was a wisk broom.

Death to smooth flattness!! Life to texture and form!!

Cool Cindy! What kind of sand did you use? Did the sand stick to the glass?

Just curious,

Nanette

Here is another question to go along with the others. Did you wet the sand or use some kind of binding agent in order to form your design? The reason I ask is because I have a blank that has texture on the back (or bottom) and want to have texture on the top. Coudn't figure out how to fire the top texture without flattening the bottom and thought I would just lay down a bed of plaster and set the textured bottom on that and then fire the top. After seeing your pics, I could probably seat the bottom in the sand and go from there. Sorry this is long winded and hope you can understand what I trying to do. Thanks Ann

Cindy next door wrote:

glassaddict wrote:Cindy:
I have been wanting to try this also - I have one question, okay this might be elementary but here goes - how do you get the sand back out of the kiln???

I just took my kiln shelf out, scooped out most of it, then used a ruler to get the thinner layer and then finally a brush. All with my mask on of course - I'm a safety girl

Any reason that the sand couldn't live in one of those terra cotta bases for flower pots? There must be a bunch left over from all those pot melts...

Cheers,

Glenn

I spent awhile going through the archives getting ratios and info. I'm sort of slowing at getting things in the beginning, so I didn't get it about the water either.

I emailed Bert and he explained to me how to do it. He uses olivine sand, which I haven't been able to locate yet, so I used a 50/50 ratio that was in a post. half plaster of paris and half 120x sand. You have to mix it real well.

I imagine those clay pot things would work well, but I have yet to have the time to try a pot melt (can hardly wait) so used what I had handy.

My real one had a problem. I wanted to keep the 18" diameter so put my ring around it which only leaves an 1/8" gap. I also didn't make the layer low enough so my glass just peeked over the rim so I stuck fiber paper in between the steel rim and the glass.

Two problems occurred. One was that there was a gap between the fiber paper and the sand and the glass hit the ring and stuck. I only have a guess on the second one. I had a good size hole show up. I didn't have any large bubbles, so it had to have come from underneath. I'm guessing that somehow I got an airtight seal around the rim and the air had to come up through the glass.

So I'm going to clean it up, put it back in and put it in a 20" ring and fill the sides with sand. We'll see how that works.

My recipe is 80% sand / 20% plaster by weight, DRY.

It might be possible to use bentonite instead of plaster, and add water, then dry the mold once it has been formed, but I haven't tried this.

I have used several kinds of sand including play sand from Home Depot and sandblasting grit by Dupont. Everything I have tried has worked fine. Sticking issues could be worse with BE than float so let us know about that.

I have run to lots of problems when I try to dam. It is a technique that escapes my understanding. I try and be aware of controlling spread by temp.

If you want to dam a piece that you are firing on sand, this is how you do it:

prepare the surface of the sand,

lay your glass down,

cut strips of fiber paper at least as wide as your glass is thick,

lay the fiber paper against the edge of the glass like a dam,

pull sand up in a pile around the outside of the fiber paper.

No need for metal or kiln furniture. Be careful when you pull up the pile of sand as it is easy to pull sand up on top of your glass.

ch

Oh Thank you Thank you! That will work great! Hopefully I'll be able to try it tomorrow!

Cindy next door wrote:Oh Thank you Thank you! That will work great! Hopefully I'll be able to try it tomorrow!

Cindy

be really careful to remove any sand from the top surface of the glass. It is killer there.

I was wondering about that. Besides getting embedded does it do anything else?

Cindy next door wrote:I was wondering about that. Besides getting embedded does it do anything else?

no