Flattening a bum slump

[Ron Coleman]

Last night I slumped a piece that caught on the mold and created a vary obvious pucker in one place along the rim. My first thoughts were to dress out the flaw and polish, but blending to a final polish usually shows, especially on black glass.

Instead, I fired the piece again to flatten it and the pucker disappeared. From what I can see looking in the kiln, there are no obvious flaws generated by the flattening process. I have no idea what the back is going to look like.

The firing was slow, about 2 hours from 1000 to 1380. At 1225 the piece was almost flat and the pucker was gone at about 1350.

So if you have a bowl go off the mark in the slump, flatten it and try again. Make sure you correct the reason for the bad slump. My problem was caused by glass that was too big for the mold and only touching in two places at the start of the slump.

Ron