silver fuming...

[Barbara Muth]

Okay, so I fired a bunch of tests in my kiln of silver leaf and its affect on different glass colors. I must have "fumed" my kiln shelf.

Lazy girl didn't scrape and re-wash her shelf because
a: the wash was intact
b: she was only firing test tiles
c: she is lazy
d: all of the above

And the answer is: D

Unfortunately, in the last firing I fired two pieces that I want to make into slumps and dagnabit, the base is vanilla. Got some serious silver staining on the back of the glass. You can even see the ghost of the pieces that had been fired previously with silver because of the stain demarcations.

So, my question is, can I blast this off? Or will the stain go deep? I would like to save these pieces.

Barbara

[jim simmons]

Don't know Barb, But I just happened to do the same thing you did, but I was lucky and did it on the back side of the shelf.

After 6 fusing firings, I did a test and the glass still had a little yellow cast where the silver was.

[Barbara Muth]

Can I get the stain off the piece I fired?

[Tess Farley]

I wouldn't be surprised if the stain does not come off without taking strong measures such as sandblasting. When firing with silver, you should have a shelf that is solely dedicated to firing silver. In order to preserve my shelf, I fire silver on fiber board or paper.

[Bert Weiss]

Okay, so I fired a bunch of tests in my kiln of silver leaf and its affect on different glass colors. I must have "fumed" my kiln shelf.

Lazy girl didn't scrape and re-wash her shelf because
a: the wash was intact
b: she was only firing test tiles
c: she is lazy
d: all of the above

And the answer is: D

Unfortunately, in the last firing I fired two pieces that I want to make into slumps and dagnabit, the base is vanilla. Got some serious silver staining on the back of the glass. You can even see the ghost of the pieces that had been fired previously with silver because of the stain demarcations.

So, my question is, can I blast this off? Or will the stain go deep? I would like to save these pieces.

Barbara

Barbara

In the stained glass world silver stain is often fired in. For this a kiln shelf is coated with a thick layer of whiting. The whiting is thrown away after the firing. it has absorbed the residual silver so the shelf does not get contaminated.

Whiting does not hold up at fusing temps so you need to find a substitute technique. I wonder if fiber paper will seperate the silver from the shelf? Otherwise I might try a layer of dry plaster.

Bert

[Tess Farley]

Barbara, try using 1" fiberboard. That is what my silver supplier recommended to me, and it works great. The board has become badly stained over time, but I haven't had any problems with the stains ruining the glass.

[Bert Weiss]

Barbara, try using 1" fiberboard. That is what my silver supplier recommended to me, and it works great. The board has become badly stained over time, but I haven't had any problems with the stains ruining the glass.

Tess

do you have any idea how deep the silver has sunk?

[Tess Farley]

No, it just looks stained. All the silver with glass fusing has been small stuff -- jewelry -- mostly made from dichro on black. I haven't noticed any staining of the glass or had any other problems from using the same piece of fiberboard over and over. I did pre-fire the fiberboard to prevent clouding. So far, so good.....