[print-me]
Hey, I’m getting game now. Time to try making a fused glass slumped bowl.
In our first purchase of materials we did purchase a couple of ceramic molds for bowls. As usual, we don’t do things by halves so we purchased the largest bowl that would fit in our Paragon Fusion 14 kiln. The kiln is square, so a square bowl seemed logical. To be honest, we did purchase 2 other molds that are smaller, so I do have moments of being reasonable.
The final design was the result of looking at what offcuts I had. We decided not to start using the large sheets we purchased initially, not until my skills improved, so I continue to try and use offcuts where possible. The design is a little geometric, but that’s the Rocketman in me. I develop software for a living so guess what, I tend to be logical and geometric designs are natural for me.
So how did it go?
Preparation
All glass is Bullseye 90 COE. Codes for the colours are provided where I can.
The base of the bowl is a clear (1101) square, 240mm x 240mm.
For the strip through the middle I took an offcut of the blue swirl (2108-30F). It was trimmed to fit the base. This piece gave me the inspiration for a rocket theme with portholes. The blue being the blue of the Earth beneath.
2 strips of smokey grey (1129-30) for the sides of the blue Earth and 2 strips of clear for the adjacent sides were cut to suit. There were no hard dimensions to this, so they were all just cut to fit. Edges were ground where necessary to improve the side-by-side fit. The top pieces did overlap the base slightly.
For the portholes I placed clear dots on the dark sides and black dots on the clear sides.
Everything was cleaned well and assembled without glue.
This was all fused together to form a flat fully fused piece for slumping. The Firing Schedule is below.
Sorry, no photos again. I promise, I will get better at this.
Before Slumping
You can see in the before slumping photo the fully fused flat piece sitting on the ceramic mold. The mold has been prepared with 5 coats of Primo Primer, dried completely between coats. This is a time consuming process, especially on anything but a nice warm sunny day. I suggest preparing your molds well in advance.
If you look closely at the photo you can see how the pieces have not fused cleanly in crisp edges. I am not sure if this is possible, but time will tell. I was happy with the effect and the sense of the Earth beneath and portholes.
After Slumping
The slumping worked beautifully.
The photo shows the finished piece still in the mold, and it did lift out very easily and did not bind in anyway.
Something to note is that the black dots fused into perfectly round circles on the clear. In a previous fusing the black dots blurred so I suspect it was the base glass used in that firing.
In hindsight, the clear dots on the black could have been white or even blue.
Overall, we were very happy with the result. This piece will stay as one of the founding pieces for Rocket Rose Art.
Firing Schedules
Full Fuse – 2 layers of 3mm Bullseye COE 90
| Segment | Rate (C/hr) | Target (C) | Hold (mns) |
| 1. Strain Release | 222 | 677 | 30 |
| 2. Process | 333 | 804 | 10 |
| 2. Anneal | FULL | 516 | 60 |
| 3. Cool | 180 | 371 | 1 |
Slump Firing – Fused 6mm thick 240mm square piece
| Segment | Rate (C/hr) | Target (C) | Hold (mns) |
| 1. Process | 167 | 638 | 10 |
| 2. Anneal | FULL | 482 | 60 |
| 3. Cool | 55 | 371 | 0 |