Melting Scrap Glass into Art

Meet my new kiln tool - its called a screen melt system. Basically you melt glass thru the screen and it puddles in the form below. My new friend Steve made this for me, its awesome and I have been having fun experimenting with it.
The idea is simple: melt glass thru the screen and the right balance of clear and color will create chaotic patterns in the finished puddle of glass. I have hundreds of pounds of scrap glass accumulating and this screen melt system could be a way of transforming it into beautiful art.

Here's what I've been doing in my kiln experiments...

- first I weigh out the glass so that the scrap used will equal the volume I want in the finished puddle (I have been using about 800grams to make a 9"plate)

- then I transfer this scrap onto the screen in the kiln (I have prepped the screen by laying fiber blanket against the steel of the form that the glass melts into and along the kiln shelf (so that final puddle will not stick to anything)

- then I melt the glass, using a program that cooks the glass at 1600degrees Fahrenheit

- once its cold and cleaned off the scrap has transformed into a puddle!

Here are my first three melts, I think they are beautiful.

I have been learning a lot along the way. These experiments will probably turn into bowls in my kitchen.

First Kiln Firings

Mustafa (my new kiln) has been workin' hard! I documented my first fire in case anything freaky happened, taking notes of any little changes in the kiln program and pictures of what the glass looked like before and after. As you can see, I didn't really do a "test" as my first kiln load of glass... as in, I could have put just a few choice pieces of glass in to see what they did before loading it up with a bunch of work and hitting start! :) But rest assured Mustafa is treating me well and there have been no kiln snafus so far.
I was somewhat conservative in my program as well as the distance between pieces (just in case the kiln had hot spots or the programmer was not properly calibrated)
And I made these two little piles of glass in an open spot on the shelf... they were tests to see how much the glass was moving at these temperatures... you see, this white glass is really stiff, so is the pink and lime green, so I made these little piles to see how flat they would become. If I raised up the temperature of my "Full Fuse" or kept it at that temperature for longer (currently Mustafa stays at full fuse for only 3minutes) I could get these piles to fuse flatter.
Lastly - for all my readers that are fellow glass artists - here is the kiln schedule that I am using:

Segment ..... Rate ... Temp... Hold

1 350 500 0.10

2 450 1000 0.05

3 200 1250 1.30

4 9999 1488 0.03

5 9999 900 1.30

6 50 800 0.01

7 75 500 0.01

8 100 300 0.01

9 Idle to room temp.

Mustafa is hot!

I have named my kiln "Mustafa" after the sexy Old Spice actor in the ads... and Mustafa is officially hot now! The electrician finished his work on Monday and when I came into the studio I could tell he was done because it was very bright upstairs! (we put in new electrical lines for big bright lights as well).
When I saw this I did a little happy dance with Amy and ran upstairs to say Thank You to the electrician and turn on my kiln. So exciting! First I did a preliminary fire to dry out the bricks and just test it out. Mustafa gave me 1000 degrees Fahrenheit in 40minutes! Not too shaby! I made a little graph of how long he took to get hot and cold. Today I put in a shelf and fired some glass - I'll see tomorrow if there are any hot spots or problems...

Kiln Moving Day

Huge big thanks to my friends for helping me move my new beast. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Especially Yed - you rock! I am forever in your debt. Seriously.

I thought it'd be fun to just make a slide show of the pictures I took while my new baby got moved into its new space. Getting it in the truck was so exciting (a fork lift picked it up), driving it to Aquila and dropping it off was no problem (thanks to Yed!), but then it had to be picked up and moved across the studio and upstairs(stairs had a corner, and there was a corner in the studio that was really tight). WOW. Its big and its black - its simply awesome. I've never seen one exactly like it and I love it.