newbie to glass jewelry

[heywilli]

Hi there, I've been a glass caster making pretty good size castings but now I am interested in casting some small pendant size pieces, 1-1- 1/2" in diameter and have no clue where to look for a casting/fusing schedule for doing so. Any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated!

[Barry Kaiser]

I have a tutorial on my site (see below) with schedules only for jewelry. In the last 8 years I have not fused anything over 4x4.
Jewelry (small piece) fusing is a totally different world from large piece fusing. Small pieces are far more forgiving.
Example: my fusing schedule for a piece with a strong bubble squeeze and tack fuse takes a total of about 3.5 hours from start to taking them out of the kiln (this includes a rush cooling). I take my kiln shelf (small one) out of the kiln at 500°F.
Small piece fusing is as addictive as any fusing. I tell my classes that the only things you need to be successful at small fusing is creativity and a lack of patience.

Barry

[heywilli]

Thank you Barry, your helpful response is much appreciated. I will definitely look at your page.

Willi

[Morganica]

I think it depends on WHAT you're casting. If the pieces are relatively thin and symmetrical, a fast full-fuse schedule works pretty well. When you get into casting highly detailed pieces in a refractory mold, though, the schedules can actually become slower and a bit tricky to figure out.

This piece, for example, is about 1.75 inches long and requires a process soak of at least four hours at 1500F with a fairly slow ramp up (you have to do that anyway, to avoid cracking the refractory). Any less, and you'll get a crescent moon without the nose and lips. Even if you pack the mold with powder and vent for trapped air, it will take that long for the detail to fill in. It took me four or five tries with this design to finally figure that out.

When I do something like this with more glass, say, the identical design but 10-12 inches long, it will complete in two hours or less. I suspect that's because the detail is bigger, so there isn't as much issue with surface tension and "glass wants to be 6mm..." stuff. Also because there's simply a bigger, heavier mass of glass pushing stuff into the mold.

I've found you also need to be a bit more careful with bubble squeezes when you're casting jewelry with frit. I don't think small pieces are more likely to have bubble issues, but because the piece is so small you're more apt to notice bubbles.

[artworks164]

I have a tutorial on my site (see below) with schedules only for persian jewelry. In the last 8 years I have not fused anything over 4x4.
Jewelry (small piece) fusing is a totally different world from large piece fusing. Small pieces are far more forgiving.
Example: my fusing schedule for a piece with a strong bubble squeeze and tack fuse takes a total of about 3.5 hours from start to taking them out of the kiln (this includes a rush cooling). I take my kiln shelf (small one) out of the kiln at 500°F.
Small piece fusing is as addictive as any fusing. I tell my classes that the only things you need to be successful at small fusing is creativity and a lack of patience.

Barry

Hello Barry,

I am new to this forum and want to learn more about glass jewelry.
Pretty good website for glass pendents/