Preparing
a Single Layer for Further Kiln Work
There can be
circumstances where you do want to fire a single layer in building up
your project. This is more often difficult on rectangular than round
pieces.
Some of the
considerations are:
Temperature
Heat work
sizing
Cleaning after firing
Firing a 3 mm piece to
anything over a laminated tack fuse normally leads to the edges
drawing in creating a “dog bone” effect and often leading to
bubbles in the interior at higher fusing temperatures. So one
approach is to fire at low temperatures and accept relatively sharp
edges on the piece.
However the concept of
heat work can help in this situation. Glass reacts to the
accumulation of heat, so that slow advances or long soaks can achieve
the desired results at a lower temperature without – in this case –
getting the “dog bone” effect. This does require a bit of
experimentation. Keep good records of all the stages of
experimentation as the effects achieved with various combinations of
temperature and time will come in useful later.
It is possible that
using the concept of heat work will not be sufficient to achieve the
desired results. Then you need to consider placing your design in
the centre of a larger piece. Fire this to the lowest possible
temperature to achieve your results and then cut the fired piece to
size. You will need to fire polish or cold work the edges to get a
suitable finish on the edges.
The central white piece shows the results of single layer firing that could be altered by the above technique |
If you are going to
re-fire any of these single-layer pieces, you need to clean them very
well. Any dust or other contamination will be incorporated into the
final piece. This is especially true if you are combining a flip and
fire technique with this single-layer firing.
No comments:
Post a Comment