Getting a fire polish without slumping

[dblood]

Hi, all, here's a finicky question:

I have small pieces of glass, diamond-shaped, standing up vertically in the kiln. They are held by slots in a mold that comes up to half their height. So half of their height is standing up vertically without anything to lean on. I want it this way so I can nicely fire polish the edges and both sides of the part that's standing free. The problem is, at fire polishing temperature the glass starts to slump over.

I'm using a Paragon Quickfire kiln, which heats up VERY fast. Could I get the fire polishing without slumping if I heated up slower?

Thanks,
David

[Brad Walker]

I'm using a Paragon Quickfire kiln, which heats up VERY fast. Could I get the fire polishing without slumping if I heated up slower?

Nope.

Fire polishing takes place at a higher temperature than slumping, so it will slump before it fire polishes. The type of kiln or rate of temperature increase doesn't matter.

[Bert Weiss]

Hi, all, here's a finicky question:

I have small pieces of glass, diamond-shaped, standing up vertically in the kiln. They are held by slots in a mold that comes up to half their height. So half of their height is standing up vertically without anything to lean on. I want it this way so I can nicely fire polish the edges and both sides of the part that's standing free. The problem is, at fire polishing temperature the glass starts to slump over.

I'm using a Paragon Quickfire kiln, which heats up VERY fast. Could I get the fire polishing without slumping if I heated up slower?

Thanks,
David

You can grind and polish by hand, not an easy job. 120 grit, 200 grit, 400 grit, cork belt, cerium oxide and felt wheel...

[dblood]

Thank you for the replies. I guess I will see if I can finagle the fire polish before the tips slump too much. A little bit of slumping over might be nice actually...