Shattered

*!@#%^*!!!!

Yup, that echoed throughout my studio when I checked a kiln run that was ruinous. I had been lured into a compulsive buy at a glass supply store. The specialty glass piece had multi-hued green shards on top of a blue swirled opaque white sheet. I thought it was perfect for one of my organic shaped vases.

During the initial heating process, right around 600 F, I heard a loud noise but didn’t know what it might have been. I wasn’t about to violate the basic rules of fusing glass and look inside the kiln when it wasn’t above 1100 F. When the temperature did reach the expected slumping point (~1200 F), I took a peek. Oh no!

This is what I saw.

The center of the glass had split open and the entire piece had fallen down around the mold instead of slowly draping over it. I think the noise I heard was the glass splitting open. Maybe the glass had not been properly annealed when I obtained it? I used my standard ramp rate for heating the glass – after holding for 15 min at 300F, ramp to 1100 F at 300 F/hour.

This odd glass imitation of a mounted fish (I could only see a big bass mouth mocking me) stumped me for many months. What would I do with it?

Hammer time!

Yes. I attacked this with a hammer and smashed this oddity into pieces. I could start over.

I choose to tack fuse some of these shards onto an opaque white sheet. Now it was time to try to drape this over a floral former to create a vase.