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01.

159 Pieces of Glass

In this strip-cut or on-edge project I’m using four colors: Cream, Lemon Lime, Dark Amber Tint, and Light Aquamarine.

All the Pieces
02.

The Diagram

I drew some guidelines for the different colors and where they’ll go directly on the ThinFire shelf paper. I’ve also already got the top and left dams in place, with some 1/8″ fiber paper to keep the glass from sticking to the dams when it melts.

The Diagram
03.

A Bit on Edge

I began at the top left and started laying out the glass strips on edge. You’ll see that the opalescent cream is shorter  than the transparent glasses, which is by design.

A Bit on Edge
04.

All Assembled

This is the entire platter, with all 159 pieces of glass, assembled on the kiln shelf and dammed on all four sides.

All Assembled
05.

Ready to Fuse

Here’s the shelf loaded into the kiln. With a judicious placement of the dams, I was able to put another project on the shelf too.

Below both pieces are fused.

 

Ready to Fuse
Fused
06.

Needling

All the edges of the platter have small spikes of pointed glass, called needling. The molten glass wicks to the ceramic fiber paper. I coldworked the piece on a lapidary grinder starting at 60 grit (the harshest) up to 270 grit (a smooth matte finish). At this point, the piece is 5.5 x 10″ in size.

Needling
07.

Ready to Slump

After grinding the edges to a smooth, rounded matte finish, the platter is ready to slump.

Below is the final platter.

 

Ready to Slump
Slumped
Results

Final Result

Strip cut projects are so fun. You can see how the taller transparent pieces of glass have flowed over the shorter cream glass. In turn, the cream glass has flowed into some gaps where there was no glass. The end piece is both structured, and yet also has an organic and handmade feel. I really like that combination.

Finished

Close-up

A shiny, softly rounded corner.

Corner Close-up
Always With the Grapes

FULL FUSING SCHEDULE (RUN TIME 9:49, 17.1 KWh)*

SEGMENT RATE (deg F / hour) TEMPERATURE (F) HOLD (hours:minutes)
1 350 1225 :30
2 600 1500 :15
3 AFAP 900 2:00
4 100 700 OFF

SLUMP FUSING SCHEDULE (RUN TIME 10:48, 15.9 kWH)*

SEGMENT RATE (deg F / hour) TEMPERATURE (F) HOLD (hours:minutes)
1 200 1250 :15
2 FULL 900 2:00
3 100 700 OFF

* The firing schedules may be designed for other projects that were fired with this one. Everything was fired in a Paragon GL-22AD.