Straight lines
Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:59 pm
I've had kilns for many years and used them to cast glass that I used for my bevel work in my leaded windows. Just recently I've been fusing work for plate and bowls and am really enjoying it. Naturally I've been viewing other work and am especially taken with strips of color and clear glass fused together and then slumped.
I've learned to fire the eventual good side down first when fusing and that side's lines are perfect. It seems no matter how tight I get the pieces the lines on the up side won't be straight. Recently I spent the better part of a day grinding the pieces for a small circle. Every piece was ground top and bottom so a straight edge placed on them showed no gaps. And just for good measure, I ground both sides of every strip so they would fit together as tight as I could get them. They were secured in a ss form with 1/8" fiber paper around the inside and believe me when I tell you, the pieces of glass were in there pretty tight.
Yet when I took it out of the kiln, the side that faced up had wavy lines. What the heck? With opalescent glass, it's not so bad as you can't see the back from the front but with clear, it's major suckage to see those lines
I've been beveling/engraving glass for almost 50 years and consider myself a master beveler so it can't be the grinding, it must be the process.
I look at work like Hegland Glass and their clear lines look perfect-how in the world do they do that?
I've learned to fire the eventual good side down first when fusing and that side's lines are perfect. It seems no matter how tight I get the pieces the lines on the up side won't be straight. Recently I spent the better part of a day grinding the pieces for a small circle. Every piece was ground top and bottom so a straight edge placed on them showed no gaps. And just for good measure, I ground both sides of every strip so they would fit together as tight as I could get them. They were secured in a ss form with 1/8" fiber paper around the inside and believe me when I tell you, the pieces of glass were in there pretty tight.
Yet when I took it out of the kiln, the side that faced up had wavy lines. What the heck? With opalescent glass, it's not so bad as you can't see the back from the front but with clear, it's major suckage to see those lines
I've been beveling/engraving glass for almost 50 years and consider myself a master beveler so it can't be the grinding, it must be the process.
I look at work like Hegland Glass and their clear lines look perfect-how in the world do they do that?