Next up: Engraving

Couldn't wait to get to the shop this morning to see how the test fire went!

As a reminder, this is the piece before firing (plain glass, not dichroic):

 Here's how it looks after firing:

It's not gorgeous, but I didn't expect it to be - I just slapped together some plain glass to see how the temps ran in the kiln.

The blue embellishment pieces sank down into the layer below just beautifully, and the surface is nice and flat. That was the point of firing upside down! Now I can move on to part 2 of the Picasso method: engraving.

I'll be getting out my Dremel, attaching the diamond bits, and practicing on this test piece. I'm worried that my inability to draw is going to be hugely magnified by the vibrations of the Dremel! One wrong move, and the bit will be skating across the surface of the glass, leaving a permanent scratch in the glass where I didn't really want one! Hope I can master my moves on this one piece, because I just filled up the kiln with a batch of dichroic, and now I'm really excited to see how they turn out!

Tomorrow, I'll post pics of the engraving set up and today's results.

These are the pieces I cut and stacked yesterday:

This is the most elaborate one I have stacked for this technique, and the largest (it's 4" x 2.5"). I used my ring saw to cut the zigzag pieces, which are layered on top as embellishment. Here's how the piece looked before I embellished it:

Once this one is fired, I'll cut it up into smaller pieces after the engraving - I like the idea of having a large pieces to hold while engraving, but unless I want a lot of finished pieces in the same color palette, I'm not sure this is the way to go. But I'll know more tomorrow! (Sure, I could have grouped different colors in different quadrants on this stack, but my obsessive brain wouldn't let me!)

This was a last minute stack:

I was very tired of piecing glass together, mosaic style, but remembered I had some iridized glass I wanted to try. I decided to be lazy, and just use one big piece of it, not even mixing it with a coordinating piece of dichroic - there's a lot of color in the iridized glass, so we'll see how it turns out. I know it doesn't look like much here, but I'm hoping the colors really come out in the firing process.

Off to engrave - see you tomorrow!

Edited to add:  Feeling a little stupid right now. The piece I was going to practice engraving on, can't be engraved. Because it isn't black-backed glass. I can engrave the red, or the white, or the blue, glass to my hearts content, but it will never show, because the way engraving works is, the Dremel removes the top (colored) layer of the dichroic glass, leaving the black underneath it as a visible mark. If I engrave the test piece I made, I just reveal the same color underneath when I remove layers. Dumb. This was covered in the class, and it's in my notes, but it didn't sink in until I tried it. Live and learn!

Ready, Aim ... Splice!?!

Do what, now?

In the continuing saga of "Will I ever get to fire some Picasso glass?", the kiln expert called me yesterday afternoon, and told me "all" I needed to do was cut the thermocouple off my old pyrometer, remove the new pyrometer from its ceramic base, and then splice my old pyrometer onto that ceramic base.

Come again? What is this splice you speak of?

So he walked me through it over the phone, and it really wasn't horrible, and I did it correctly the first time (there was a 50-50 chance I would connect the wires backward, since they weren't labeled;  if connected backwards, the temperatures would run backward. Hmmm. You learn something new everyday!)

I guess you learn more than one new thing some days, because now I know how to splice thermocouples. But the kiln rep was quick to point out that I'm not ready for my electrician's license yet. At some point during the phone call, he commented "I don't know what to think about you .... you ain't right." This after listening to me talk to myself while splicing. See? Even over the phone, people pick up on my subtle quirks.

It was too late to run the kiln, but I decided to go ahead and load it, so no time would be wasted this morning.

And, par for the course, I ran into another roadblock.

When I was lowering the kiln shelf into the kiln, I noticed a little bit of whitish debris in the bottom of the kiln.No big deal - I picked it up, and it crumbled, and my arm touched the wall of the kiln, and more debris crumbled to the bottom of the kiln.

Uh-oh.

I inspected, and touched the wall again, and a huge hunk of the firebrick fell off in my hand, leaving this:

front wall of kiln, with missing firebrick, exposed coil

chunk of firebrick

Now I'm panicking a little, because I truly cannot afford a new kiln. And I just bought this expensive controller - and for what!?! My mind went from 2000 to 0 in a nanosecond.Nobody does pessimism like I do!

By now, the kiln place was closed for the day, for which I'm sure the nice kiln expert was very grateful, because I would have been calling, in full panic mode.

I took the pics, e-mailed him, and set about to fill some time.

I stacked one more piece of glass, using the dichroic I etched earlier this week - remember the loopy piece I made?

gold dichroic loops

I cut a strip of this, and made this stack:

Later yesterday evening, I heard back from the kiln knight (I have now elevated him to now Knight in Shining Armor). After several e-mail back and forths, he said I could go ahead and fire, and that he would send me some kiln-safe cement with which I could replace the chunk of firebrick. But most importantly: I can go ahead and fire!

Upon arriving at the shop this morning, I loaded the kiln with the sacrificial stack I made from non-dichroic glass - if it fails, I'm not out huge $$, like with dichroic.

non-dichroic stack

I almost loaded it in face up - it seems really weird to put it on the shelf face down.

glass stack, face down in kiln

I turned everything on, checked the program specs for the 50th time, and hit "start" at 10:03AM.

Here's my kiln, with the controller off to the right.

I'll be anxiously waiting out this run - the firing will take 8 - 9 hours, and then the piece will need to anneal for hours, so I won't get to see my results until tomorrow. If everything goes well, I'll have a piece to practice engraving on by this time tomorrow!

To fill the time today, I've reversed my earlier decision, and decided to make some more stacks of glass - might as well fill the kiln next time. After all, I have all that glass, and the tools, piled on my workbench anyway!

Worktable Wednesday: Roadblocks and Repairs

My new digital kiln controller arrived yesterday around 5PM - way too late to install it and fire a run of glass, even IF everything had been OK....

new digital kiln controller - isn't it pretty and shiny?

This is the digital controller, fresh out of the box - The eagle-eyed among you might spot the first issue: one of the 2 wires that connects to the thermocouple is NOT connected - I entertained that thought that maybe it was a grounding wire, and was supposed to be disconnected. (Ha!)

I hurried to the back room, and disconnected my analog thermocouple/pyrometer from the kiln, and discovered issue #2: the thermocouple for the new controller is about 3x the diameter of my analog one, and therefore would NOT fit in the port into the kiln. That's not good.

I tried to call the supplier, but they were closed for the day. Of course.

So I put the controller on my workbench, and decided to plow through the think operating manual that came with it. I learned how to set it, and program it - and spent about an hour programming in the firing schedules I wanted (there was a lot of starting over here, as I kept pushing the buttons in the wrong order. Aarrghhh!)

Then it was going home time - so I left everything right where it was, and planned to arrive at the shop early so I could catch the technical support folks at the kiln place.

Which I did - he agreed that the disconnected wire was a non-issue, and told me how to reconnect it. However - fitting the thermocouple into the kiln is going to be a bigger problem; not insurmountable, but it may involve either drilling a larger hole into the kiln's firebrick OR disconnecting the wiring from the new thermocouple and reattaching it to the old thermocouple OR mailing the whole thing back and starting over.
And who would be doing the fire brick drilling and/or the rewiring? Well, that would be me. Um ... what?!?

This was not supposed to happen, of course - I had been assured that the new controller would be plug 'n' play, essentially - no drilling, no nothing - just pull the old thermocouple, slip in the new one, and plug 'er in!

Roadblocks  - hate 'em!

The gentleman at the kiln place asked me to send him pics of the old thermocouple, the kiln, and some other stuff, so he can work up some solutions. He has some other things to attend to this morning, so he'll be phoning me back after lunch.

So - back to the drawing board, and the worktable!

This was my worktable at 8 AM this morning:

The kiln controller is front and center (with the all-important DVD player off to the right) - and lots of glass and glass-related tools and equipment piled everywhere. Makes me claustrophobic - but heaven forbid I should put anything away, because I would promptly need it again!

That's my Bailey (and his Baby) photobombing the shot above....

I put the new controller in a safe place, leaving this:

Well, that's a little better. I love how I have a styrofoam tray of glass (the glass I etched yesterday) precariously balanced on top of a leaning stack of plastic containers AND a salt shaker (because eventually I'll need to salt my lunch today!) - I smell disaster ... I need to put that glass somewhere safer, but right after I do the pending repairs and custom orders, I plan to USE that glass.... I can be a real idiot sometimes. Do you have any idea how many times I have knocked over stuff because of this exact situation? Crazy.

While I wait for the kiln man, I want to knock out the repairs and custom orders that have been accumulating while I have been playing with glass.

4 jobs pending

repair #1

This is the first repair - It's a restring, and there are some beads missing, so I'll have to add an extender chain, since I don't have any suitable replacement beads. If you click on the pic, you can see the extremely thin, fraying thread this was originally strung on (no knots) - how/why do things like this get sold? - this necklace was doomed from the moment it was first strung. The pendant and beads are heavy, and the string is ultra thin. Unbelievable.

repair #2

This is another restring - if you look closely, you can see where it broke, and the customer's husband tried to repair it for her. He used some wire from his workbench, and you can see it poking out and wrapping around the pearl on the right near the gold focal ring. It's obviously very stiff, and it's catching on stuff.

Lampwork beads

These are destined to be a pair of earrings, as are these:

Murano glass bicones

So, that's my Wednesday. Cross your fingers that non-mechanical me (I, I know) can be talked through the kiln issues!

What's on YOUR worktable?

Enameled Copper Pendants

Sonya and I had a metal studio playdate yesterday, and I made these enameled copper pendants:

After cutting and prepping the copper, I textured one of the pendants (the reddish one at bottom left) with the Sissix Big Shot. I knew from previous experience that texturing pendants before enameling is often wasted effort, because as the enamel liquefies, it tends to pool in the depressions of the texture, obliterating any texture you've worked to achieve. But I had a plan for that!

I applied 3 coats of clear enamel via torch immersion, so that the front and back were well covered. For the blue and green pendants, I chose opaque colors, placed the pendants on trivets, and sifted on the chosen colors (lichen for the green, peacock for the blue). For the textured pendant, after placing it on a trivet, I sifted on a transparent color (raspberry), hoping that even when the enamel pooled, the fact that it was transparent would allow the texture to show through. Then I fired them in the kiln.

After cooling, I sifted one more coat of the chosen color on each pendant, and then started decorating. I had wanted to try kiln-firing for these because I was hoping that the even heat of the kiln would allow the large millefiore pieces to flatten nicely; they flattened some, but not entirely. But firing these in the kiln was so much easier than in the torch (and preserves my precious MAPP gas!) that I am going to make all my pendants this way - the initial coating in the torch puts on a "sealant" coat of enamel that prevents firescale in the kiln, so I didn't have to worry about using Klyr-Fyr, sifting on the enamel, waiting for it to dry, then flipping the piece over, only to have most of what I had just applied fall off. No more worrying about firescale and counter enameling - successful experiment!

Plus, 3 cool pendants!

After finishing my enameled pendants, I switched gears and starting working on some cold connections projects. It's been ages (it seems) like I did some metal work like this, except for the clasp I made for my partner for the recent Bead Soup Swap - and I guess I'm not counting that because I gave it away.

I got several things started, but not finished, so I'll be working on them later this week, and hopefully sharing them soon!

Fold-formed and enameled earrings

These earrings were forged from 24g sheet copper, which I cut, sanded, fold-formed, and then enameled. I used transparent "beryl" enamel, and fired them in the kiln (as opposed to immersion torch-firing). I chose the kiln because I wanted to maintain the texture I'd achieved with the folding, and sometimes immersion enameling can fill up all the texture, defeating all your hard work - but also because I love firescale. There - I said it: Firescale can be beautiful!

Immersion enameling doesn't allow for firescale formation - some view this as a great benefit. Me? Not so much - sometimes I have to fire up the kiln and get a little firescale flavor going.

And now I am laughing because Blogger spell check believes that "firescale" is a typo for "freckle". LOL!

"Raku" in the Metal Studio

Sunday was Metal Studio day again - we have such fun playing on these days! I wish we could get together more often.

This time, we decided to tackle an enameling technique known as "Raku;" it bears some similarities to the raku pottery process, as I'll explain below.

I decided to use the process to create several pairs of fold-formed copper earrings. These start off with a large sheet of 24g copper, which I then cut into 1-inch squares.

Next comes the folding - each square is annealed, then placed in the vise and manhandled until folded, with multiple annealings in between each fold to keep the copper soft enough to work with.

Here is one pair of earrings after all the folds are placed and re-opened:

The dark dusky color is firescale from the multiple annealings.

The earrings were then pickled for a long time to remove the firescale;

The acidity of the pickle solution actually removes copper molecules while removing the firescale, leaving a matte finishe, so I then took steel wool to both sides of each earring to get a nice bright shiny surface again (although I certainly could have left them matte!) And this is the point where holes are placed for the earwires - don't forget to do this before firing!

The firing process is next - 2 firings with clear enamel to both sides was first, to get a good base coating.

Then comes the "raku" firing. These are the pieces, ready for firing (the raku color of enamel is in place):

That's my trusty Paragon kiln ramping up in the background - it has to get to around 1500 degrees before we can fire.

Now, more about the actual raku part of the process. Immediately upon removal from the hot hot kiln, the pieces must go into a container (with a lid!) containing shredded paper, so that they will ignite the paper and then smolder under the lid.

Here is the roasting pan we used, filled with shredded paper, ready for the emergence of the earrings from the kiln:

Isn't my nice clean roasting pan pretty?

So, the pieces are yanked from the kiln and unceremoniously dumped into the roasting pan, whereupon flames start shooting skyward (have the fire extinguisher nearby!!) I quickly clamped the lid on the pan, squelching all but a little of the escaping, acrid, stinky smoke, and ran for the door to get this smelly thing outdoors. OMG it stinks.

After about 70 minutes, the smoldering process ends and the roasting pan is cool to the touch, and we can continue.

Opening the lid:

The square burnt up thing is the screen that the trivets were on. Underneath there, buried in the paper, are the trivets and the earrings. And can you see that smoky yellow film on my pretty roasting pan?

My entire roasting pan is now coated in this horribly stinky sticky gunk. Several washings with baking soda and clorox (not together!) eventually removed it.

I fished out the trivets and earrings, and this is what I had:

You can sort of see some interesting, "oil-slick" coloration here, but really not much to look at, huh? Just square brown blobs, in my opinion. Then I started to think (which can be dangerous!) - if that nasty yellow slimy stuff is all over my roasting pan, it might just be on my earrings, too...

So I took the earrings to the sink and scrubbed them with dishwashing liquid, water, and an old toothbrush. And this is what was lurking underneath that film:

Now you can see the reds and blues and irridescent I normally associate with raku!

Each earring looks slightly different, but I could find 2 that closely resembled each other enough to pair them into 6 pairs. And the more I look at them, the more I love them!

This was time and labor intensive (and I had to clean that mess out of the roasting pan!); if I hadn't chosen to fold form the earrings it wouldn't have been nearly so time-consuming and difficult, but I really love the result!

Now the 12 earrings are piled on my work table, waiting for earwires. Sometimes the very last, finishing step (attaching a clasp, anyone?) is the one I procrastinate on. Well, that, plus it was almost 9 PM by the time we finished the firings, and I wasn't hanging around to place earwires - I wanted to go home by then!

More Art Clay Silver, and a Little Venting

Before I get into the meat of this post, may I just vent for a moment about how irritating the blogger login process is?

First of all, I carefully copy and paste my e-mail address in, because if I type it in, blogger ALWAYS rejects it as invalid.

Then I carefully type in my password, and without fail, blogger tells me it is invalid, and makes me type it again. I mean, every time, every single time. They do the same thing to Bailey. What is the deal?

But this is my favorite: Then I get the error page, that tells me this:
"Your browser's cookie functionality is disabled. Please enable JavaScript and cookies in order to use Blogger."
Which of course is complete horseshit, because my cookies ARE enabled, and then I have to go to my favorites and click back to my blog page, and now I am logged in. Blogger login sucks.

OK, I'm done.

I've taken a lot of classes since the last time I posted, so here is the scoop:

I told you I was going to take a few more Art Clay Silver classes, and I have.
A couple of weeks ago, I took Enameling on Art Clay Silver. Our class projects were a pendant and a pair of earrings. In this picture, the organic binder in my pendant burns off in the kiln.

This picture shows everyone's projects firing in the kiln. This stage takes 8 to 10 minutes. Once the pieces have fired, we will sand them, and then apply the enamel. Did you know that enamel is glass? I didn't, until this class, that is!

Yep, the enamel is actually fine particles of glass that we fuse to the metal.

This is my pendant, after it fired. I had just finished brushing it with this wire brush, so all the silver molecules are now "standing at attention." Prior to brushing, it looked like a piece of pottery.

Here are both projects, right before I started applying the enamel.

They are sitting on the different sanding cloths used to smooth them.

There are 2 different ways to apply the enamel. (That's why we had 2 class projects!) One way is called sifting, and that is how we enameled the earrings. Fine, dry particles of glass frit are placed in a very small sifter, and sprinkled over the pieces, just like sifting powdered sugar over a cookie.

The other enameling method is called Wet-Pack, and I forgot to take a picture of it. In this technique, the fine glass frit is mixed with a small amount of distilled water to make a slurry, which is then applied with a very small paint brush to your piece. This technique gives you more control over where your color ends up. Whichever technique you use, the piece is fired in the kiln again, to fuse the enamel to the silver.

I used the Wet-Pack technique on my pendant, so in this picture of my finished projects, you can see that the color is applied just in the swirl design on the pendant. Where I sifted enamel onto the earrings, I got a more widespread color effect.

These techniques can be combined, but that's too advanced for me!

This past Saturday I took an Advanced Art Clay Silver Class, where the project was a pendant with a bezel-set cabochon.

Initial prep of the clay is the same as with other Art Clay Silver Projects, but preparing the bezel is tedious, and must be done first (so your clay doesn't dry out). The bezel is formed from 28-gauge fine silver, and must be measured to fit the cabochon fairly precisely. Silver oil paste is used to "glue" the bezel's seam together temporarily.

Once the bezel is done, the clay is prepared, and the bezel is pressed into the clay. The pendant is dried prior to firing - the clay can be allowed to dry overnight, or drying can be sped up by using a mug warmer.

Once the piece is dry, it goes into the kiln. Here is a shot of the organic binder in my pendant burning off - that is my favorite part!

After firing, the stone is placed into the pendant, and then the fun begins (not really). The next step is bezel rolling, and this was my least favorite part. The bezel must be carefully fit to the stone in order to hold the stone in place, and this step requires 2 tools and a lot of hand and finger/thumb strength. I do NOT have a lot of strength in my hands, and this step was very difficult and painful for me.

Starting at the bottom of the bezel, a bezel-roller is pressed all around the stone to snug the stone in place. This is repeated at the top of the bezel. Then, a curved metal burnisher is used to roll the top of the bezel over the stone to really hold it in place and give it a nice finished look. This was absolutely a nightmare for my hands and thumbs.

We then painted diluted liver of sulfate on the Art Clay Silver, to give an oxidized look to the pendant. We painted, rather than dipping the pendant in the liver of sulfate, because you don't want to get the liver of sulfate on the bezel or on your stone. Following the liver of sulfate, the piece is polished.

This picture shows my pendant after the liver of sulfate but before polishing.

This is my finished pendant, after polishing.

And that's it for Art Clay Silver today!

I started this post over 3 hours ago. I had the (usual) technical problems logging in, and the (usual) issues with picture uploading - I don't know why the pics can't just load where you want them to, instead of loading at the top of the page, and having to be dragged. Good grief. And one backspace too many, and you delete a photo, and have to upload it again, which I only had to do FIVE times today. Then, Blogger crashed in the middle of my post, and was down for 20 minutes. All this whining is to get to this: poor, long-suffering, patient Bailey has been sitting beside me for an hour and a half, begging to go outside. He alternately gets up and growls, noses my left hand, and then sits back down in the exact same position, then starts all over again in 2 or 3 minutes. And I kept thinking I would be finished ANY minute, so I made him wait. Bad Mom! I don't feel too guilty, though, because I finally gave in about 10 minutes ago, and, as I suspected, all he wanted was to go bark at the workers next door again. He can be very manipulative!