Glass Pressing Pictorial

[Kev]

Today I am going to try my hand at pressing glass. I'll take pics of the process and explain what I am doing with each step. Together we can learn what works and what does not if that is the case. I'll post pics today.

[Becki]

Good for you, Kev!  I'm looking forward to your process.

Hey, wait a minute!  Are you calling us toadies? 

[Alan]

   Kevinese strikes again

[Kev]

LOL...typo...corrected....it took me a minute to figure out what you were talking about....lol

[Judy K]

Good Luck, have fun!!!!!!

[Kev]

Ok..here we go......

This experiment hopefully will tell us something about how the glass spreads when pressed.

I'm starting out with an 11" x 11" base of clear with stacks of 4 to 7, 1/8" inch thick glass. I tacked the stacks in place with Kyle Fire and then placed them on the base glass and tacked them onto the base as well. This made placing the pieces very easy.

I placed the composed piece on a freshly kilnwashed shelf and then placed several pieces of 1/8" fiber paper double stacked at several places at the perimeter of the shelf. I have never used fiber paper before, and the instructions for the pressing tutorial say the glass will compress to the height of the paper once fired. When I compressed the paper in my fingers, it looked like it would compress to about 1/16" so I doubled up on it. I'll learn with this experimental piece if that is too thick or not.

I then placed the other kiln shelf on top of the glass stacks with the kilnwash side down against the top of the glass.

 4 high density fire bricks were placed on top of the kiln shelf to add the weight needed to press the glass.

I programmed the schedule as per the instructions, so it's a wait and see what I end up with thing at this point.

 Here are the pics to accompany what I physically did.  

BTW...This little plastic stick that you get to plug the sipping hole in your Starbucks coffee cup for travel, makes a great applicator for applying the Kyle Fire or hairspray to tack your pieces.

[Becki]

Looks good!  Did you use alot of clear to "water" the colors down?

[Kev]

I layered clear glass in between the colors, and in some places used 2 layers of clear. I can always add more clear on the 2nd go round.

[Marsha]

Is it done yet????   I can't wait to see!!!

[Judy K]

Awesome! I can't wait either. My kiln is hot too but I am just cooking shelf primer , yours is way more exciting

[Kev]

I'm excited to see it as well.

[ct4mom]

Cool Kev I cant wait to see the results!!!!!

[Elizabeth]

All very exciting Kev - looking forward to the results!
Damn - just won't work for Ian - we don't have a Starbucks here,  so how will he glue his pieces together????  

[JoanFrances]

Kev will the end result have dimension or will it be flat?  Were do you get glass that is that thick?

[Kev]

The glass is flattened as it melts so the overall project thickness is 1/8" when done. I just used regular fusing glass that is 1/8" thick and stacked it in piles.

[Kev]

Danger Will Robinson, Danger...LOL

I was horrified when I opened the kiln this morning. The glass had melted between the shelves and ran over the edge onto the kiln floor. There was a "glassicle" attached to the kiln shelf and the floor. Thank God it came off easily from the floor of the kiln (it pays to kiln wash it..LOL). Unfortunately my shelves are ruined. The top one has a crack in it almost halfway across it, so it's just a matter of time before it splits in half.The bottom one I'm not sure about, as it has glass stuck to the edge of it. It is still cooling at this point so I can't really assess the damage.
The "Coloring" of the glass itself is beautiful, (kind of reminds me of a Cactus), but as you can see..pretty unusable as it is. The edges are filled with spurs, and there are large gaps in it. I suspect I might contour fuse it to another base piece of glass and then slump it.

The 2 thicknesses of fiber paper seemed to work fine. (On inspection of the glass, it is 1/4" thick, so 1 thickness would have been fine. Thankfully I had not done that considering the results, as I would have had more glass run off compressing to 1/8".

I suspect some of my problems me be from too much volume added for 1 firing, and a not completely flat kiln shelf, thus allowing the molten glass to flow off the edge. Since my top kiln shelf split, I'm wondering if.......well, I guess I'm still wondering about that one. Maybe it was heat related...once the kiln started to cool, I could see the fire brick actually glowing...kinda cool to see, but not for the price of a shelf...lol. That may have nothing to do with it...I'm not sure at this time.

Word to the wise....Kilnwash the floor of the kiln!

[Becki]

I think your run off may have indeed been caused by too much volume.  Might be useful to use the pot melt calculator!

I'm wondering if the breakage of the glass and shelf have to do with the added thermal mass?  I think I have to do some research!

[Kev]

LOL..my research is over...lol

[JoanFrances]

sorry Kev, it all sounded like it was gonna make something beautiful

[Kev]

I can salvage this into something else...I already have an idea brewing.

My second half of the kiln shelf is fine...counting my blessings. I rarely use these shelves anyway, I always use my V-board on the bottom of the kiln as my shelf. I would be hesitant to use the cracked one now as my luck it would split during a fusing project.

I just finished kiln washing the floor of the kiln again, as I had not done it since I initially did it. Kiln washed the V-Board as well..it was due.

Kiln wash should be called Kiln Insurance....lol