[print-me]
Yes, I know, ‘sort of’ doesn’t sound too great but this simple project came out of the blue. It really wasn’t planned.
It came about when I looked at a 200mm squarish piece of 6 mm clear Bullseye glass and considered trying to cut it. My previous attempt at cutting 6mm glass didn’t exactly work – it cracked in the wrong place. I need a little practice on that one, so I was a little unsure about cutting it.
Anyway, inspiration hit and I could see a nice cheese board in the square, without cutting. Something simple in design I thought. So undaunted I dived in.
First thing was to grind the edges of the 6mm square and tidy it up a little. One side of the piece had what looked like an obvious handle with slight indentations on opposing sides. This I liked and decided to keep it as is. By the way, if you don’t have 6mm clear, simply lay up 2 x 3mm pieces.
Being summer I thought something with a bright and easy look about it would be nice. Like most glass artists I have a heap of scrap glass in all colours and sizes so the obvious choice was to use some of these scraps and lay up a simple design.
To get that bright summery feeling I chose red and yellow scraps along with similar coloured stringers. You could use any combination of colours.
Along the handle side I laid out a few stringers and then selected a number of yellow and red scraps to place randomly over the base.
The piece was then full fused on kiln paper to fuse it all together. The firing schedule is below.
The final piece was very simple but I really like it because of that. It’s colourful and will be sitting on the table this Christmas Day.
Firing Schedule
Full Fuse – Cheese Board
Please be aware that all kilns fire differently and this schedule may not produce the same results in your kiln.
| Segment | Rate (C/hr) | Target (C) | Hold (mns) |
| 1. Strain Release | 222 | 537 | 20 |
| 2. Process | 333 | 780 | 10 |
| Crash Cool | Open Door | 550 | 0 |
| 3. Anneal | Full | 516 | 60 |
| 4. Cool | 83 | 371 | 10 |