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.
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.