Frit Lace – Part II
Upon opening the kiln, this is what I saw:
The Big Picture
All in all, I am happy. Now for their close-ups. The indigo blue.
Indigo Blue Tint
They look good, except that there are a couple of places where the frit was apparently piled too thin and there is only a sliver of glass connecting everything. There is also one area where there are complete gaps in the lace. The gap is at 2 o’clock. It goes lace, space, frit blob, space, lace. Also, the bright spots you see are individual specs of frit that did not pull into the lace.
Juniper Blue Tint
The next one is the juniper blue. No real issues here. The frit is thin, but not stringy, in a few areas. There is also at least one intersection that developed a hole. But that is fine as it does not detract from the overall effect.
Ruby Red Striker Tint
The last one is the ruby red striker. Remember how it was a blue/lavender frit? Now it is a most gorgeous reddish pink. This one has the fewest thin spots or holes.
So now comes the question of what to do with them. I need to fire some blanks, which will simply be two layers of glass fired using my regular full fuse schedule. The pale tints look best against white glass, and the ruby red needs something that will set off its stunningness [is that a word?], so they will all probably be white bowls. Although I do have some indigo blue tint glass, so it is possible to do a blank that is white on one side, indigo blue on the other for the indigo blue bowl.
Once the blanks are fired, then it is necessary to tack fuse the frit to the blank. Last time, I used the following schedule, which worked well.
300 / 1365 / 10
AFAP / 900 / 2.30
100 / 700 / 01
In my kiln, the lace maintained its shape and adhered well to the glass using this schedule. After what I learned and saw in my crackle class about tack fusing, I think I may slow down the initial ramp to something more conservative in order to avoid thermal shock between the layers. Better to go slow than to shed tears if it cracks.
Once everything is fused together, it will be cold worked, then slumped. I have access to a flat lap, but it is nearly two hours away, so it will be a while before these bowls are slumped. I will need to make a few more projects to make it worth my time and money. I have a number of glass projects in my mind for Christmas, and my November trial calendar appears to be clearing up, so hopefully I will be able to amass a stockpile of projects and get out to do some cold working in early December.
