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Hi all,,,I have a soap mold that is 61/4x41/4 and dont have any red glass that size so,,I want to fuse my scraps into that size or approximately and then put that in mold,,I have only used the great ss ring from Laurie and had success but not just fusing pieces to use like this, I use Bullseye and want to know if a full fuse would work and approx. how much to use(how many layers??)..I have drawn out the shape on thin fire with about 1/2 inch all away around jic Thanks to all

bothofushk

Hi,,I guess my question was ,,well,,, stupid,,lol,,no one wanted to answer it...I did piece pieces of fusible bullseye red together along with red frit and powdered clear and full fuse,,I had (as expected) seam lines and a couple of gaps,,so now I am gonna dam it up and put MORE of the same and full fuse again,,,and then slump in my mold,,,so people with questions that nobody answers ,,,Just do it and then tell us about it,,,its all in the learning.

bothofushk

It's interesting, you posted your first post on the 22nd but I don't recall seeing it come up when i did view new posts. Maybe that happened to the people that usually answer questions like yours.

I've used my Bullseye scraps lots of times to do what you are doing. The thickness you want to end up with will give you an idea of how much glass to fuse. If you want it to be the size of the molds you are going to need to pile your scraps so that you get a 6mm thick layer or a little more. Having it come out bigger is better than smaller as you can always cut it or grind it down to the size you want. Using glass scraps is easier than using frit because it won't shrink as much as frit does when it's fused and when you use them together like it sounds like you are doing, you have to take that into consideration. Figure the frit is going to shrink about 50% as it fills in all the air spaces between the particles of glass. Also, after you get the size and shape you want, you could always flip the glass over and do a fire polish on the side that was against your kiln shelf. This should be smother than the top was. Also, keep in mind that every time you fuse the same glass that you need to slow down a bit. You may need to hold for longer to give the glass time to flow. It's better to hold longer than go higher.

Good luck.

Mike

thanks so much Mike,,,the info is well appreciated..

bothofushk

"keep in mind that every time you fuse the same glass that you need to slow down a bit."

Why? I see the necessity of accounting for solid masses (instead of small pieces) and differing thicknesses (adding to an already fused piece) or odd shapes (possible coldworking the piece and then refiring) on subsequent firings but that blanket statement approaches voodoo for me.

You'd slow down on subsequent firings for four reasons (I can think of):

1) On the previous firing you were fusing a whole bunch of little pieces into a much thicker piece, so you need to reduce your ramp to avoid thermal shocking the thicker glass
2) You think you might not have annealed the piece well enough on the previous firing, so you're playing it safe
3) You suspect there's a crack somewhere in the piece (from coldworking or whatever) so you're reducing the chance it will expand quickly and open the crack
4) You've got to do something to the glass/kiln at a certain point in the firing cycle, and if you go at your normal rate you'll wind up doing it at 3AM...so you slow down the firing and get more sleep.

Otherwise, well-annealed is well-annealed. If none of those four conditions obtain, I don't see why you'd need to slow down, either.

I'll bow to the wisdom of those that have been doing this a lot longer than I have. You can disregard what I said, although I've seen it written a lot of times, including from people that have been doing this a long time.

Mike

And therein lies the danger of parrot wisdom . . .

Mike, Voodoo is a good religion and better than the belief system Marty espouses.
Continue to slow down and do not consume any wisdom flavored parrot crackers.

Wraaaaak, Polly want a Cracker, Wraaaaak, my bowl Crackered.

» Sun Jan 26, 2014 1:51 am
Hi,,I guess my question was ,,well,,, stupid,,lol,,no one wanted to answer it...I did piece pieces of fusible bullseye red together along with red frit and powdered clear and full fuse,,I had (as expected) seam lines and a couple of gaps,,so now I am gonna dam it up and put MORE of the same and full fuse again,,,and then slump in my mold,,,so people with questions that nobody answers ,,,Just do it and then tell us about it,,,its all in the learning.

You have your own wisdom, I've only learnt from the sweet agony and pain of failures. Even today against better judgement I tempted fate and will probably keep pushing it until no more tings, but I did learn something about a method to speed up cooling. peace, haydo

Haydo- There have been descriptions of circulating fans on the inside of the kiln (motor outside, long shaft with slow propeller on the inside) and convection tubes circulating air from the inside to the outside and back but I think that was to promote evenivity. I think Doc Steve did an experiment and found that cooling the outside of the closed kiln with a fan helped speed up the transfer of heat but I don't remember if the difference was substantial.
The only method I've used is to go do something else until the stuff was cool enough to handle. What did you find?

Kevin- I don't dispute that voodoo works for some people, so do placebos, and we are far from knowing everything (I love the line from Game of Thrones: "you know nothing, Jon Snow"). My belief system is very informal but retains a serious level of skepticism. If you were comparing Judaism with Voodoo (I practice neither), they're pretty similar except that one has much better music, food and dance.

even Bullseye believes in the voodoo of glass chemistry in only warranting their glass for 3 fusings.
Having used Bullseye in the early days when it was still building its color ranges I'd still never want to fire it more than twice.
It is one thing to have religious beliefs but another to have to have to pray for every firing to not have parrot cracker breakages.

Kevin Midgley wrote:even Bullseye believes in the voodoo of glass chemistry in only warranting their glass for 3 fusings.
Having used Bullseye in the early days when it was still building its color ranges I'd still never want to fire it more than twice.
It is one thing to have religious beliefs but another to have to have to pray for every firing to not have parrot cracker breakages.

OK. I'm confused. Bullseye says three but since you knew them 'way back when, that means two, yet the religious just get the munchies with Polly?