Notes From the Glass Studio: Making Glass Flow

This is a new piece that Scott launched into after last week's debacle.

Scott doesn't let anything slow him down for long, not even the disappointment of seeing one of his projects come out of the kiln broken. He immediately started cutting class to make three more similar projects.

Meanwhile, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to capture photos of his technique!

Scott starts out by cutting strips of glass and then tack-fusing them together into blocks.

These blocks are made of periwinkle, white and aventurine blue glass (the latter looks almost black in this photo), and were used to make the piece in the top photo on this blog post.

Scott brought a few of those blocks into the house, and they totally mystified Ellie, who wanted to know how he glued the glass together. But they weren't -- they were tack-fused, which means they were in the kiln at a high enough temperature to begin to make the glass soften but not so hot or long enough to make it completely molten.

It takes lots of those blocks of glass to make a 9-inch-diameter bowl.

These are enough for two separate projects.

Once those blocks of glass strips are ready, it's time to let them flow.

First, Scott had to find a way to contain the molten glass since he wants his piece to be about three layers of glass thick. There's something about the physics of glass that makes it want to be about 6mm (or two layers) thick and it will automagically either flow out or pull in to try to make itself 6mm. So if you want your glass to be thicker than 6mm, you have to dam it to keep it from flowing out and thinning out.

Some people use steel rings, but they're expensive and you're limited to the sizes that someone else thought were best. So Scott made his own out of vermiculite.

To keep the glass from sticking to the vermiculite, Scott uses a ring of fiber paper. The pink underneath it is kiln wash on the shelf, which serves the same purpose as the fiber paper. 

The vermiculite is bulkier than steel rings (and takes up more shelf space!), but it's more affordable and certainly far more customizable.

The blocks of glass are positioned on a circle of clear glass. 

After arranging the glass blocks on the kiln shelf, it was time to put it all in the kiln and turn up the heat.

It's flowing!  Note: If you have a kiln of your own, don't open it when the glass is molten like this unless you have eye protection!

And then it's done with its first step. Next will come adding a border, using a sandblaster to get rid of the devit, fire polishing and, finally, slumping it into a bowl.

So pretty, isn't it? Scott really achieved his goal of making something that looked like a rose. 

Meet the Maker: Another Q&A With Scott

This is another in an occasional series about the makers behind Foster's Beauties' artwork. 

Scott pretends to be asleep on the job while volunteering to work the lights for a skating exhibition in March 2013.

The most common question asked of an artist is where do they get their inspiration. It's a tough question to answer, but in this post, Scott does his best to explain how he decides what to do in his segmented woodturning pieces.

Q: Tell us about your design process when you're percolating an idea for a new segmented piece. 

A: Well, that varies a great deal!

Sometimes,  I want to reach out to add a new technique or direction.  Then it is a matter of considering a stepping stone or two, that will be challenging enough.  An old colleague of mine said, "You learn more from a near failure than a complete success," and that fits with how I try to take on a new skill or design element.  I aim for something that is just within what I think I can accomplish that reaches out along a path to what I want to be able to do.  I learn something from that process, and then reach some more.

If I'm trying to create a particular thing, or function, I consider the requirements and create a few sketches or ideas.  Some ideas will seem to do the job better than others.  With the luxury of time, I'll set some ideas aside and come back to them again later, or combine ideas that I didn't use in a prior project to push the next project along.

I usually percolate down to a sketch or two that seems to serve the function, and appeals to the artistic idea.  Sometimes the materials guide the next step too: I only have X board feet of this particular grain pattern so how can I optimize my use of that board?  I do the math, and solve some of the geometry.  A few more sketches usually evolve, and change the lines a little here or there to find a better way of expressing the feeling that starts to build around the piece as the design evolves.  I'll sort through how to build the pieces and the steps that I expect to need to take along the way in my mind.

Usually it comes down to a final scaled drawing with enough details that I can work from, and then finding a way to express that onto a single page that tells me about element sizes that I have to start cutting things into.  Sometimes I have to invent a way to hold the pieces, and end up building a jig.  Sometimes it involves the inventing of new steps when new possibilities show up while I'm part way through a project, or when problems (excuse me, design opportunities!) happen along the path.

That's all for this round. Be sure to check back to hear more from the makers here at Foster's Beauties! And check out examples of Scott's work in our Etsy store -- you might find the piece you just can't live without!

The Miracles of Glass

Remember this?

It just about broke my heart when that gorgeous piece broke itself.

Scott took it to Bullseye Glass to talk with some of their experts in their resource center and was told that when working with pattern bars and other extra-thick glass, he needed to give it a looooooong soak at the top temperature.

Normally, glass is fused in roughly 10 to 15 minutes at about 1490 degrees F. Bullseye tests its glass to be sure it can handle a maximum of 30 minutes at 1500 degrees, which is typically plenty for the multiple fuses a complicated piece might require.

But the reason this piece hadn't flowed to completely close all the open space in the center was because it needed a lot more time and at a higher temperature.

So Scott put it back in the kiln, this time for an hour at 1525 degrees.

And look what happened!

If you know exactly where to look, and Scott does, you can find the thin line where the glass broke after its first time out of the kiln. But to the rest of us? It's perfect, with no sign of its fault line.

Isn't it gorgeous?

Like any true artist, Scott likes to try to improve on perfection. So he made a second piece very similar to the first:

Can you see the differences? Scott added some aventurine green to the center, and also used more clear glass when he made the blocks of purple. The additional light helps keep the purple from looking black.

And here they are together:

The new one is on the left, the original on the right.

Mind you, they're not quite finished yet. Scott plans to slump them in a sushi mold, which will give them a gentle curve.

Happy Friday! Hope your weekend is a happy one!

 

Meet the Maker: Q&A with Scott

This is the first in an occasional series about the makers behind Foster's Beauties' artwork. 

Scott is cutting scrap glass into tiny rectangles that he put into the kiln to turn into tiny spheroids, which he hopes to fuse into a bowl. It's a lot of work to cut hundreds of those pieces of glass, and then have to clean them all before sticking them into the kiln! Can't wait to find out how his project turns out!
 

Scott is the man behind the beautiful wood pieces we sell (and the intricate glass art that we hope to someday sell!). But he's not just an artist: he will skate at the National Figure Roller-Skating Championships this summer in Albuquerque, maintains three heavily planted aquariums, and is an awesome dad and husband.

Q: You're an electrical engineer in your day job. What's appealing about spending your evenings and weekends working with wood?

A: Most of the art in my day job is buried down in layers that aren't seen by most people.  The only evidence of my hand is that the product does it's job, and a look inside will reveal beauty only to a small percentage of people. The projects at work often require a couple years to complete.

In the wood shop, most of what I do can be seen right up on the surface.  And often, I'm highlighting a spectacular piece of nature too: a grain pattern that is unique and lines that can be appreciated by a fairly wide audience.  I still aim for products that do a job and are useful.  While many projects take just a few weeks, there are not a lot of them that require over 6 months to complete (unless I'm really low on time that I can spend, and I don't think any projects would require that much time if woodworking were my full-time job).

I find it rewarding to put that first coat of finish on a wood project and watch the colors and depth pop.  Or to put a piece of pattern bar into the (glass) kiln and remove it after it has flowed into a new shape and become something different and unique compared with what I started.

 

In my day job, projects go in directions dictated by customers and team think.  In the wood shop, I can realize ideas that are shaped by my own desires.  I still have to cater to the requirements of the wood and glue, or glass and heat, but there is a freedom that makes exploring the unknown and a depth of figuring out new techniques to do things that is exciting.  To be sure, there is lots to learn in the day job too, always progress in engineering to be learned, but choosing directions for my own work adds an element of playful fun.

That's all for this round. Be sure to check back to hear more from the makers here at Foster's Beauties!