01.
Ooh Shiny
Encouraged by the success of the first up-cycled wine bottle, I decided to get a little fancier. I purchased a mica powder assortment from Delphi Glass, along with two more ceramic bottle molds. You can see a close-up of the powder below.
I filled that small squeeze bottle halfway full of powder, then added the red Glastac glue at upper right until it was full. Then I shook it in order to mix it, and squirted some into a clear bottle.
Once it had drizzled down one side of the bottle, I turned the glass slowly to get some mica on all the inside surfaces.
02.
Into the Kiln
The two molds at right are new. In the middle is a herring-bone pattern with a slightly flat overall profile. At right is a mold with a swirl texture. I’ve chosen a light green bottle for the swirl so the pattern can be seen through the glass.
03.
Slumped
The bottles always look so sad and deflated when they’re sitting in the molds, but the finished results are great.
Results
Final Result 1
Easy-peasy and pretty upscaled. The herring-bone texture on the bottom is easily visible from the top. But just in case you want to see the back, I have a photo of it just below. The shiny copper is kind of dressy.
Final Result 2
The swirl texture is fabulous and the bottom of this malt liquor bottle (picked up from a bus bench!) has slumped over quite evenly. It’s very pretty with no effort on my part–except for cleaning the bottles and taking off the labels. I show the back of it just below, and I’m really looking forward to doing more of these.
SLUMP FUSING SCHEDULE (RUN TIME 5:14, 11.9 kWH)*
| SEGMENT | RATE (deg F / hour) | TEMPERATURE (F) | HOLD (hours:minutes) |
| 1 | 500 | 1100 | :10 |
| 2 | 250 | 1400 | :20 |
| 3 | AFAP | 1475 | :05 |
| 4 | AFAP | 1000 | 1:00 |
| 5 | OFF |
* The firing schedules may be designed for other projects that were fired with this one. Everything was fired in a Paragon GL-22AD.