Glass Arts project

I mentioned a few days ago that we had joined the Glass Arts club and taken the "101" class. We then signed up for a "fused glass" class and have done our first projects!

As I understand it, there are two major paths that we can take in Glass Arts -- fusion or stained glass. We like the look of fused glass, so decided to try that first. Fused glass requires a specific type of glass so it will melt in the kiln instead of shattering. It is more expensive than the glass that most folks use for stained glass (you can use the fused glass for stained glass projects, but you'd be paying more for a characteristic that you don't need). 

Carl and I both decided to make spoon rests, as we figured we could use one in both the casa and the motorhome. We elected to go with a more modern design as it only had straight edges for us to cut and we had learned from our experience in the "101" class that our skill at cutting smooth curves is, uhm, limited! The club has patterns for us to use with molds that the club owns, so we knew the shape that we needed to cut the glass.

Our instructor monitoring as I was cutting the clear glass that would be the bottom layer of my project.

I scored the line, and then used a tool to break it along the line.

Carl marking the pattern on his clear glass

Carl scoring the clear glass:

 

Carl splitting the clear glass:

 

Next, Carl marked and scored the colored glass he had selected -- when he selected it, we noticed that the glass was cracked a little at the bottom, but there was enough good glass to use for our pattern...

... however, when he tried to crack along the scored line... oops!

Our instructor was watching and thought Carl had scored the glass well, and was then baffled by the things that happened with Carl's colored glass. Undeterred, Carl decided to go ahead and fuse the two pieces of glass together, hoping that they would meld into one piece in the kiln!

Continued preparation by rounding the corners before fusing

We both cut our bottom clear glass, and then purchased glass to use as our top glass. There were a few pieces of glass (long drawn-out glass made during the melting process) available to use for free, and our instructor also had a few scraps that she allowed us to use. We glued our clear and top glass together (using clear Elmer's glue, and then placed our decorative pieces on top. We forgot to take pictures before our projects went in for fusing, but we did get pictures after they were fused:

Carl's cross - the cracked piece was the upper right, and it is not at all noticeable after the full fusion process.

Patti's abstract

The type of fusing that we used was "full fusion" which is at a hotter temperature and pretty much melts the top pieces into the base. For a spoon rest, you don't really want any raised parts that would catch food.

After we had checked the results of the fusing (Carl checked on both of ours as I was working at the Activity office on the second day of the class), Carl put our projects back onto the shelves for "slumping". This is also done in the kiln, with a mold placed under our glass, and the glass melts ("slumps") into the shape of the mold.

Our two fused pieces on the slumping shelf with a work order sheet indicating which mold we wanted them to be slumped into. There is also a mold on the right side of our pieces -- I don't think it was the mold for our pieces, but maybe a mold that another member was wanting for a non-standard use and therefore wanted to indicate exactly where on the mold their glass should be slumped. The other student in our fusing class was making glass covers for night lights, and she was using a mold in a non-standard way (her piece was smaller than the normal size of the mold) -- so that might be her piece also on the shelf waiting for slumping.

Here are our two finished products -- you may be able to tell that the mold caused them to be curved upwards on the bottom so the handle of the spoon would rest there, and there is a shallow cup-shape at the top for the bowl of the spoon.

As I indicated, this is a more "modern" look to a spoon rest. They have molds for a spoon rest that is more circular at the top and bottom, but we liked this design and are happy with how they came out!

Things we have learned -- art glass is *expensive*. We are glad that we are learning, but not sure that we will become long-term glass arts crafters. We hope to enjoy it this season, but it remains to be seen whether we will continue another year.