The best place to view current photos is on our Instagram page: Instagram Photos
Sometimes things can go very wrong in the kiln. We thought you might find these “bloopers” interesting. Hopefully, this page will not get too many entries because that means lots of lost pieces. The newest stories get added to the bottom of this page.
[gallery_bank type=”images” format=”masonry” title=”true” desc=”false” responsive=”true” display=”all” sort_by=”pic_name” album_title=”true” album_id=”5″]
Little bubbles often add dimension and interest to pieces. Big bubbles will ruin a piece and it’s not always clear why they happen to a particular piece.
This layered fragments piece was intended to be an oval serving dish, but the kiln had other ideas. The clear circles that you see are actually holes in the piece. When large bubbles are created in the kiln they literally bubble up, can become super thin, like when you blow a bubblegum bubble, and they will eventually pop if cooked long enough.
Two of the photos are smaller pieces that were made from sections of this larger piece.
[gallery_bank type=”images” format=”masonry” title=”true” desc=”false” responsive=”true” display=”all” sort_by=”pic_name” album_title=”true” album_id=”4″]
Here is an example of a bubble on steroids.
This large purple, green and white piece (16″ diameter) was intended to be a deep bowl, but it did not survive it’s first firing in the kiln. The surface of this bubble is actually fairly thick, probably because it did not stay in the kiln at top temp as long as the blue piece above.
We can still cut the glass into smaller pieces, but a definite disappointment. In the last photo you can see how tall the bubble got and how strong it is to support the weight of the piece.
[gallery_bank type=”images” format=”masonry” title=”true” desc=”false” responsive=”true” display=”all” sort_by=”pic_name” animation_effect=”fadeIn” album_title=”true” album_id=”6″]
This piece developed bubbles when I tried to add a piece of clear glass to make it thicker after it had already been slumped. Fortunately, I was able to drill out the bubble and add more glass to fix it. This piece is now nice and solid with no indication that it had 4 bubbles marring the underside at one point in the creation process.
[gallery_bank type=”images” format=”masonry” title=”true” desc=”false” responsive=”true” display=”all” sort_by=”random” animation_effect=”bounce” album_title=”true” album_id=”7″]
Sometimes makers like to try to get pieces of glass to balance just so and use glue to hold them in place. The problem with this is that the glue burns off at a much lower temperature than the glass requires to start fusing together. If the glue off gasses too much or gravity kicks in, small balanced pieces can move. Moral of this story – don’t try to balance things.
[gallery_bank type=”images” format=”masonry” title=”true” desc=”false” responsive=”true” display=”all” sort_by=”pic_name” animation_effect=”bounce” album_title=”true” album_id=”8″]
We have successfully repaired a few pieces that have been broken cleanly into two pieces. All of those were pieces in fairly gentle shapes. This was our first attempt to repair a piece in a much steeper edged mold. As you can see, our attempt was mostly unsuccessful. Although it is now one very solid piece of glass that is absolutely cool, it does not resemble the original at all. Orange juice anyone?
The 3rd photo shows the original shape, but it is not the exact piece since we apparently never took a picture of the original.