You
might remember I posted about carving the rose leaflet out of wax for
a platform for the small pink flower to sit on.
Well, I finished it
and Marc made the mold and I filled it and it went straightaway into
the kiln late afternoon on Wednesday. Marc set the schedule for
drying the mold overnight and then moving on up to casting
temperature on Thursday. So he went over to the shop Thursday
morning to check on it and the kiln had malfunctioned and it was
glowing red hot at nearly 2300˚, hot enough to melt batch for
glassblowing. Casting temperature for our work is generally around
1500˚, sometimes hotter depending on how deep and narrow some of the
elements of the piece are.
He
shut the kiln off and cracked the door and by afternoon, while it was
still too hot to take the mold out of the kiln, it wasn't too hot to
take a picture or two.
So
here's what a closed mold looks like when you get it hot enough to
boil the glass and mold material and fuse the plaster and silica
flour to the glass. (For you glass people out there I used Bullseye
transparent lt. green, olive, and grass green in equal parts, all
fine frit.)
The
kiln shelf is toast, ruined as the glass and plaster at the bottom
fused to the ceramic shelf.
It
blasted two holes through the mold at the point of the leaf tips and the mold, which is usually soft as chalk after firing, was pretty
damn hard and I needed a hammer and a putty knife to chisel and
break it off.
I
got as much of the mold off as I could and then soaked the piece in
vinegar for an hour or so and then used a metal brush to get as much
of the mold material off that was going to come off. What remains is
hard even though it looks friable.
So
instead of a nice rose leaflet, I have an alien geode.
wowee zowee! that's super hot. i'm gonna say that i am glad nothing worse happened but then also looking at what did happen - well that simply sucks.
ReplyDeleteI'll take it. Love geodes.
ReplyDeleteThat is just shy of Cone 10 that I fire too. Potter's will put little chunks of glass into the clay surface so that it will run down the sides as rivulets for decoration. Do you use kiln wash? I am not sure it would have helped here. Could have been worse, the glass could have run off the shelf and into the kiln brick.
ReplyDeleteOh my god. How many cuss words were employed in this situation?
ReplyDeleteYikes! The geode is pretty though.
ReplyDeleteWith art it's always a few steps forward and a few backwards. I commend you for showing the problems as well as the joys of working with glass.
ReplyDeleteHope your kiln didn't get damaged...
ReplyDeleteAwesome mistake! I love it!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking, as I looked, you had an archaeological dig. That is worse than anything that could happen at a loom. I'm so sorry at the mess you have to deal with.
ReplyDeleteI love your work,the precision of it, the ethereal quality of it combined with a good eye and marvelous color.
ReplyDeleteBut I truly am taken with the abstract quality of what was for you a terrible accident.
In art, I think that no accident is useless. There is always...or almost always...a redeeming factor involved and I certainly see it here.
Beauty and ugliness, two sides of the same coin.
The rose leaflet was beautiful! What a terrible disappointment. I sew, knit, etc., and sometimes deal with less than wonderful results,
ReplyDeletebut this was doubly cruel for you because it was so unexpected, and you were no way responsible. I am so sorry. The "geode" may be pretty, but. I am sorry you had this happen. May it be A VERY LONG TIME before you have a repeat of this experience.
What a disappointment. Damn the bad luck as we say around here. It looked so lovely....
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity, I checked the specs on my heat guns -- maximum temperature is 1200F. Your kiln had doubled that. Amazing. I hate when those unexpected and wholly nasty turns of fortune come. I once had to scrub an entire floor free of epoxy, because of a manufacturer's error. The stuff hardened, but not fully, and it would pull your shoes off when you walked across the floor.
ReplyDeleteBut your geode is pretty. I do hope the kiln's all right.
Never saw anything like this.Interesting however, the geode is the state rock in Iowa.
ReplyDeleteMy hat is off to you! I would have just had to walk away crying! But you cleaned it up and I bet you will find a use for it! You are so creative.
ReplyDeleteOh, yikes. What a mess! Is it expensive to replace the shelf?
ReplyDeleteIt might be a chance artists take, but I would have a hard time being philosophical about losing a piece I created. Like everyone said, I hope the kiln is not damaged. What a display of what high temperatures can do....
ReplyDelete