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Dear friends,
Attached is a photo of a Mesh Melt that I made, laid on STRIP Fusing that I made.
I want to fuse them together to make one FLAT piece, with the melt inside the stripes.

Yet, OTO, I do not want to lose the fringes at the edge of the piece. I know I can dam the 3 sides, but what about the side with the fringes?
How do I eat the cake and have it???

Should I fuse with the upper surface down? I still got the fringes 'problem' [keeping them as fringes]
Full fuse
or
tack fuse?
then flip and fire polish? Would'nt the thicker part come upwards?

Should I full fuse at a higher temp. , dam , but then again, how would I protect the fringes? Fiber paper inside? What about the curved edges, will I lose them???
Can anybody suggest something?
I am sure others have incurred this situation...
many thanks in advance,

Havi

maybe pack the fringe area with dry alumina or plaster? or make an alumina/plaster mix and pour over that area? rosanna

If I were trying to make a piece with a melt inside stripes, I would place the melt onto the shelf and build the stripes around the melt, then dam on three sides and fire. In your case, that would require redoing the strips from scratch, which you may not want to do.

rosanna gusler wrote:maybe pack the fringe area with dry alumina or plaster? or make an alumina/plaster mix and pour over that area? rosanna

Thanks, Rosanna,
That's a very interesting idea, of which I did not think, but I think it might work. Is Alumina what we also call 'whiting?'
I'll see if i have the courage to risk it, especailly in view of what Brad wrote...


Thanks you so much,
Havi

Brad Walker wrote:If I were trying to make a piece with a melt inside stripes, I would place the melt onto the shelf and build the stripes around the melt, then dam on three sides and fire. In your case, that would require redoing the strips from scratch, which you may not want to do.

Yes , Brad this was my original plan of work. The photo you see just 'happened'. I made the strip-sheet without particular purpose, just to have it, and use it eventually.
But when it was done, I kind of thought I might try lay the melt on top of it and 'got fired up' [is there an idiom llike this in English?], anyway, got very excited, and thought I should try and make it like this.

I am learning.
very slow, unfortunately,

Thanks for your help,
and everybody else's help
when I die I shall be an excellent artist......................


Havi

Havi wrote:

rosanna gusler wrote:maybe pack the fringe area with dry alumina or plaster? or make an alumina/plaster mix and pour over that area? rosanna

Thanks, Rosanna,
That's a very interesting idea, of which I did not think, but I think it might work. Is Alumina what we also call 'whiting?'
I'll see if i have the courage to risk it, especailly in view of what Brad wrote...


Thanks you so much,
Havi

alumina hydrate is the ingredient in kiln wash that provides the non stick. i use it instead of silica flour when i cast with plaster. 1:1 plaster : alumina by weight. you could also probably use dry kiln wash at the same ratio and be fine. i would lay the strip melt on the shelf and pour the plaster mix over the ends that you wanted to keep fringe. let that set up and then fuse the other piece on top of it. r.

Many thanks, Rosanna



Havi

Hi Havi, I am thinking more in the lines with Brad . You will loose some of the amazing blue flow if you melt it onto the top. I also suggest a simple way that will for sure work out. Cut out strips of fiber and make a dam section piece on the fringe part , then dam the rest with fiber board . It would be wonderful and will flow with the torn or cut fiber fringe and stop where it hits the fiber. I do it quite often with the edge of the mountains on mountain scenes. Cover the whole shelf though with a piece of fiber paper so you do not thermal shock your shelf. Les

In my opinion, the melt fused into the stripes as one smooth piece would look rather busy, and actually detract from the pour.

Have you considered silicone to attach the pour on top of the stripes, much like you've laid it out now? I like the texture created; it helps to define each pattern for me.

Many thanks Les and Val,
I really appreciate your comments and critique and will consider them.

Meanwhile I am getting ready to 'frame' another melt with strips, that are not yet fused. It is going to be quite a lot of work, especially when my strip cutting is not very even.
however, doing is from the beginning will enable me to construct the fringes and protect them - and more.

When this will be done, I shall have much more knowledge and experience , which might help with the blue one.

I have also another melt in violets , on which I shall work later.

I am still learning, that's all I can say , and your comments and inputs are valuable for me.


Many thanks again,
Do not hesitate to criticize even about things that are not 'perfect' I need the lesson.....


Havi

Havi,
A couple of ideas......
Could you put the melt upside down on the shelf, so the top would be in contact with the shelf, then place the strip construction on top, also upside down, dam ends and sides as others have suggested, and fire it like a flip and fire? I know the strip piece would be suspended above the shelf by the depth of the melt, but i think it should "fall " pretty much straight down....but I don't know for sure..... Or....
Could you do like a kiln carving, cutting out the shape of the melt in, say 1/8" or a couple of 1/8" thicknesses of shelf fibre, put the strip construction atop, do a fuse to " melt around" the shapes, then you should have a shape/size in the strip piece that would hold the melt, then flip it over, put the melt in the space and fuse it again into its custom space. The colors in your strip piece I would think would hold and your melt would only be subject to one more fusing session.
I can't tell you these ideas would work, but I would think they might......others may have more info to offer.
Y'all take care,
Linn

LInn,
Many thanks.
Actually my original idea was as your first one. However, I have been told that it would be a very 'dangerous' [so to speak] firing, so I really got cold feet.
Surely it will have to be a long firing, low and slow, and keep a long time soak at my [centigrade] 600 - 650 degrees, yours 1110 - 1200F, I believe this is how Moje does his slumping - according to Halem. And then, after several hours at this temp. he raises the temp. real quick for FEW minutes, and completes the 'slumping' by doing this. then - annealing. Perhaps it would work in combination with Rosanna's recommendation.

Your other idea is also interesting, thanks for it. I shall store it [hopefully] among my good ideas.!

My other dilema is about doing the other piece, following Brad's recomendation - [above]

Actually I would want the new piece to look with the stripes the way they look at the side facing the shelf. So should I do it upside down and then flip and fire??? Then again, I might get the piece streched???
Brad, can you please comment?

Thanks again to you all,
you help me, enrich my world,
teach me etc. etc.

Havi

When the piece is melted, and thinner, there's enough transparent glass there that you'll see the stripes through the piece and it probably won't give you the effect you're seeking.

If you have one of those ringsaw blades that opens (I have one for the Taurus) you could trace the outline of your melt on the glass, drill a hole in the center, insert the ringsaw blade and make a cutout in the shape of the melt. Then lay out the striped piece (now with a hole in it), insert the melt and fuse together. As long as at least one of them is more than 6mm thick, they should flow together and give you approximately what you want.

Thanks, Cynthia,
Yours is the ideal solution, for sure - - -

But you over estimate me by faaaaaar...................

I am not sure I find in ISRAEL , someone who would do this cutting for me. My registration is so bad, so poor, this is impossible for me....

but thanks, I 'could' make a round hole and put the image inside, then fill the void with some kind of frit - which will change the whole picture, again.

Then perhaps Val's solution is best............. [glue with silicon]

I keep on thinking

Thanks,

Havi

Havi:

I like it just the way you've shown it in the picture. What's to be gained by yet another fusing cycle which may markedly alter the appearance as it now stands? So why not just glue the two pieces together? The melt looks like it's opaque enough in a few places so that the glue dollops would not show through.

JMO...

I agree with David and others who think the piece in the photo makes a nice composition. What about a tack fuse instead of silicon glue. It would require a slow ramp through the brittle zone to avoid thermal shock. The fringe along the base would also be preserved.

Cheers,

Bob

Thanks, Bob and Dave,
and thanks again to all the suggestions, and perhaps [hopefully] there would be more.

I have another irregular melt which I want 'to frame' with stripes. I am going to do this one first, just by putting stripes around it, and see what will come out of it. How would it look when everything is at the same level.

Hopefully this will help me decide what I should do with this blue one, which I like very much/

I asked for your help and suggetions, because I like very much this very accidental composition, and I want to keep it. Only I did not know HOW.


Thanks again,

I am grateful for your imput

Havi