01.
Three Layers
I didn’t take a photo of this fun plate under construction. I drew a circle on the Thinfire paper and started laying down glass. The bottom layer, which isn’t visible here, is just like the top layer: pieces of clear Tekta glass. The middle layer is made up of similarly sized but different shades of green glass. The pieces in the second and third layers are laid down to bridge across the gaps between the pieces of glass in the layer below them, thereby filling in any holes.
02.
Close-ups
Although I didn’t take a photo of the plate under construction, I did photograph the test piece I did before I committed to the entire plate. These are before and after fusing.
03.
Make It A Circle
Because I didn’t dam the plate during fusing, it spread when it melted. I scored a circle with a circle cutter and then used the Glastar grinder to remove all the glass up to the score mark.
04.
More Coldworking
The grinder left pretty deep scratches at the edge, so I also used diamond pads in four different grits to smooth away the scratches.
05.
Close-up of Edge
After all the grinding and smoothing, the edge had a nice matte finish.
06.
Read to Slump
I slumped the plate on Classic slumping mold (8747).
07.
After Slumping
The matte edges fire polished to a nice gleam in the finished piece.
Results
Final Result
I’m particularly fond of the way light goes through the entire piece. The soft and blended pieces of green are endlessly fascinating to me. I could look at this plate for a long time.
FULL FUSING SCHEDULE (RUN TIME 6:39)*
| SEGMENT | RATE (deg F / hour) | TEMPERATURE (F) | HOLD (hours:minutes) |
| 1 | 500 | 1225 | :30 |
| 2 | AFAP | 1500 | :30 |
| 3 | AFAP | 950 | 1:00 |
| 4 | 200 | 725 | OFF |
SLUMP FUSING SCHEDULE (RUN TIME 11:02)*
| SEGMENT | RATE (deg F / hour) | TEMPERATURE (F) | HOLD (hours:minutes) |
| 1 | 200 | 1250 | :30 |
| 2 | AFAP | 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.