Cutting and Stacking, Day 2: Glass is Sharp!

I spent most of yesterday cutting and stacking glass again to practice the techniques I "learned" in last week's webinar.  I say "learned" because the webinar flew by at lightning speed, and I took pages and pages of notes, and now am reviewing the session videos and my notes, and cutting glass to practice on.

Those of you with sharp eyes will notice that one of these pieces is from yesterday's post,  meaning I actually completed only 3 stacks yesterday. But I also watched about an hour of session videos, and helped customers in the shop, so it's not like I was eating bonbons all day! Although, if I had HAD some bonbons ... just sayin'.

The glass stack at the bottom left isn't dichro - just plain glass. This one will be the test piece for the new digital controller I should receive next week - I want to see how the temps run in the kiln before I start sacrificing my dichroic glass.

It always amazes me how quickly you forget that glass is sharp when you are working with it - I was amazed that I made it through Thursday without a single cut (that's a first for me!) - so I wasn't really surprised when I started off yesterday by slicing a big (BIG) hunk out of the back of my right hand, right off the bat, reaching into my big rubbermaid glass container to pull out a box of dichro. The glass was so sharp I didn't even feel the cut, but when my hand came out of the container, holding the box of glass, I felt something wet running down my fingers - yep - it was a big cut.

It takes a lot longer to put these pieces together than I ever thought it would, so I think this will be it for the first technique we learned (engraving) - I really wanted to have 8 pieces in the kiln run for engraving, but I'm just not up to that much piecework!

The next technique is acid-etching. I haven't re-watched the videos yet on this technique, and the glass is handled very differently, so that's what I'm going to move on to today.

Cutting and Stacking

My friend Deborah and I participated in a fantastic webinar last week - I discovered the webinar on Deborah's blog, and am so glad I did! Thanks, Deborah!

The webinar was led by Tanya Veit, a fantastically talented glass artist, and covered advanced techniques in glass fusing, including Tanya's Picasso technique, as well as glass etching, decals, and many other exciting new things (new to me!)

As with any new technique, I had to buy some stuff before I could start creating - why IS that? Will I ever have enough stuff?

I am still waiting on one item - a pricey digital controller for my kiln. For years, I have been just fine with my analog kiln, but I used a very different firing schedule from the one Tanya recommends for her Picasso technique. The schedule I usually use calls for a fast ramp, and 2 brief holds (10 minutes each) - and so it was no big deal for me to stand by the kiln, babysitting the controller, to make sure the temps stayed on target during the run.

 Dichroic pendant, Picasso technique, by Tanya Veit (pic from Tanya's blog)

The firing schedule recommended for the Picasso technique involves a very slow ramp, plus 4 prolonged hold times - by my calculations, about 8.5 to 9 hours of firing. There is just no way I am going to sit beside the kiln for that long - I have stuff to do!! A shop to run! And my kiln is just too finicky to be left alone with glass inside, so I broke down and ordered a digital controller for it yesterday.

And speaking of yesterday - since I had all the other ingredients on hand, I got them out, organized, and set out to stack some glass.

First, I opened up my brand new, still-in-the-box, Morton cutting system. As a gullible student I was once talked into buying it, and then intimidated by all its parts and instructions, so I never used it. I spent quite a while on Tuesday getting acquainted with it, plowing through the instruction manual, and finally felt confident enough to give it a try (although I'm still not ready for some of the fancier things it can do).

Morton cutting system, set-up for 90-degree cuts (strips, squares, etc)

Morton, with my brand new piece of black glass

I only had a small amount of plain black backing on hand, so I had to order a piece. 

I cut lots of strips yesterday on the Morton - not just my black backing, which I cut into pendant size pieces, but also some glass I have had for years - huge, 24 inch square pieces of glass, some dichroic, some not - that I have moved around from place to place, trying to keep them from breaking. They were so huge, I felt afraid to try to do anything with them. Since the Morton was already out and set up, I grabbed these big sheets of glass and cut them into more manageable 8x8 pieces.

Next, I set about to created the stacks for the Picasso technique. This was WAY harder than Tanya made it look during the webinar! (imagine that!)

 the dichro I plan to use for my Picasso pendants (resting on my still-uncut black sheet)

After hours of tedious cutting of the dichro pieces, I had one (ONE!) pendant stacked:

So - it's more cutting and stacking for me today. My new controller should be here Tuesday, and installation is supposed to be easy (!) so Wednesday may be a firing day. Yay!

You glass fanatics out there should keep an eye out for one of Tanya's webinars - it was a wonderful learning experience!