Glass Fusing

[revchris]

Here's the kiln, along with a programmable furnace controller I borrowed from work.


teeka's kiln is an AIM Kilns model 84J without the optional pyrometer.It's got a maximum temperature of 2350°F, so it works for glass fusing, PMC, enameling, etc. Right now, we're running it with a controller I built for work, but don't use much there as it's intended as the universal spare.

Well that's all well and good, but what are you really talking about?

Cabochons!

Some of the many cabs in teeka's collection


And a few that teeka picked out as "extra special"

They're made by carefully arranging a stack of glass chips, and then placing them on a specially prepared tile (it has to be coated so that the glass won't stick to it), and placing that into the kiln. Then you heat them to 1500°F, hold them there for ~15 minutes, cool them very quickly to 1100°F (if they cool too slowly, something goes wrong, but I haven't seen it go wrong, so I don't really understand what the problem is), slowly to 800°F, and then cool them down to room temperature and whatever rate the kiln naturally cools.


glass cabs and other pieces at 1500°F

When they're at 1500°F, they're not really liquid, but they're very close to it. The above picture is looking into the kiln at the start of the fast cool to 1100°F, and shows two large slabs (which will eventually be snapped into slices, re-fused to round off the edges, and strung as necklaces, and parts of four other cabs. The one at center bottom has a piece of embossed copper between clear glass, and had glass powder flaked over the copper during assembly. The other three belong (I think) to K&K, who were in town and stopped by, so teeka showed them what she was doing and they had to try it too. The wires you see running through the cabs are wrapped in special ceramic paper to keep the glass from sticking to the wires. After cooling, the wires can be removed, and this leaves holes for stringing them on necklaces.