Love is Transparent

• Print
• Email

Details

Last Updated: Friday, 11 September 2015 16:41

Designer: Pauline Rancourt

 

Instructions

1. For the right depth of clay, lay out canvas fabric on table and place 3/8”" slats on the left and right side of the canvas fabric.  Place a piece of moist clay about 3 lbs. in size in the middle of the fabric.  Using a rolling pin, roll out the clay to the size desired. You will need a 14” x 10” piece of flat clay. The slats are used as a guide to keep your clay level and at the same evenness. Make sure the edges of the rolling pin hit the 3/8" slats.
2. Take the SL-434 Lovely stencil and place it on the clay. Roll the rolling pin over the stencil. You will need to do this several times in order to cover the clay with the design.
3. Once your clay has the hearts all over it, take your needle tool and poke holes into the background of the design. This will take some time but is a very effective design. It will make the hearts stand out.
4. Place slab on Sheetrock and place another piece of Sheetrock on top of the clay to keep the slab from curling up and to help dry the slab evenly.  Allow the slab to dry completely. If your slab is not dry and there is moisture in the clay, when fired the heat will form steam with the moisture that is in the clay and cause it to break or explode in the kiln.  You will know your clay slab is dry by placing it against your cheek. If the clay slab is room temperature then it is dry. If it is cool at all, it may look dry but your slab is still wet on the inside. Please let your piece dry sufficiently.
5. While your slab is drying, you can cut the glass to get everything ready for firing.  Cut two pieces of clear glass to the size of 12” x 8”.
6. Take your “love” word pattern and glue it to the black glass using rubber cement.  I like to put rubber cement on the glass. Affix the paper pattern to the glass making sure it has good contact with the glass.  Then I apply rubber cement over the paper causing a barrier so that the water from the Ring Saw does not wash the pattern away.  Allow to dry and then cut out your lettering.
7. Once the Clay is dry, there is no need to spray or brush any glass release onto the clay. It will release your glass the first time you use the textured slab.  You will only need to apply glass release to the slab if you are going to use it a second time.
8. Lay the two pieces of clear glass onto your slab and fire the glass to a full fuse using a nice long bubble squeeze.  Sometimes larger pieces get bubbles when there is not enough time allotted for a proper bubble squeeze.  You can also place small clear pebbles or med size clear frit along the edges of the class to help in the bubble squeeze process.
9. Once the glass is fired and has that lovely heart design all over it, clean and dry the piece.
10. Lay the cut out letters over the textured side of the glass. Place on firing paper in the kiln and do a tack fuse firing.  This will allow you to keep the texture and the letters will be raised on your textured glass.
11. Drill two holes into the glass with a glass drill bit for hanging if desired.

Please remember that any "generic" schedule is meant as a starting point.  Your project, your kiln and your desired results are all variables that will likely be reasons to adjust this schedule. Remember to fuse and anneal for the thickest part of the glass.

Full Fuse Two Pieces of glass

Segment Rate           Temp    Hold

1      300         900         15

2      500         1100       0

3      100         1250       120

4      9999       1475       10

5      9999       960         60

6      100         800         0

7      200         700         0

8      400         100         0

Please remember that any "generic" schedule is meant as a starting point.  Your project, your kiln and your desired results are all variables that will likely be reasons to adjust this schedule. Remember to fuse and anneal for the thickest part of the glass.

Tack fuse firing used

Seg                 Rate       Temp    Hold

1                      200         900         15

2                      500         1100       0

3                      100         1250       30

4                      999         1350       1

5                      999         960         45

6                      100         800         0