Janet H Walker on mon 27 jan 97
To the folks who have been messing around with firing bits of glass
onto their pieces: how do you get the glass reduced into "the right
sized" pieces? And, maybe, what is the right size?
I'm assuming that fingernail sized chunks would be OK. But what I
have is a showbox full of scraps from someone who does stained glass
and these are all pieces much bigger than that.
I assume I could put the glass pieces in a metal bowl and drop a
big rock on them but wouldn't that lead to tiny chips as well as
small chunks? Is that good too? Better?
Folk wisdom solicited. Thanks.
Jan Walker
Cambridge MA USA
Patsy Catsos on tue 28 jan 97
To break glass into smaller pieces, try freezing the glass, then plunging it
into boiling water. It worked pretty well for me.
Patsy
Jocelyn Olivia Mc Auley on tue 28 jan 97
I've played around with firing glass with a piece a little bit. I also
use stained glass scraps. If a piece is too large you can use a glass
cutter or put your glass in a bag (be carefull it might rip) and tap it
with a hammer till the piece breaks. Things I've been told to watch for
are making sure you dont put too much glass in so that it overflows on to
your shelf, or stress your piece when you fire it (from the glass
expanding). It's also interesting to experiment with which colors stay
true after being fired.
Jocelyn McAuley
YiLi Lin on tue 28 jan 97
i recently saw a picture of glass pieces- long slivers, balanced on mouth
of jar (before shot) then (after shot) same jar with the most wonderful,
thick, natural ooze down neck and spread across shoulders from the melted
glass. When I am brave enough- looking for information about doing this
with a small electric house current kiln- that's the method i will try
first.
YiLi Lin
FAY & RALPH on tue 28 jan 97
Janet, we usually take those large pieces of glass and
use a mortar and pestle. Please be very careful, pieces
of glass can jump up into your eyes. We usually put the
whole mortar and pestle and glass into a plastic bag, with
the opening of the bag around the pestle so that you have
space to move. All the best Ralph
Bob Chance on wed 29 jan 97
Billy Henson, a jug potter from Lyman SC has an interesting way of
pulverizing his glass which he uses in his 1/3 clay, 1/3 ash and 1/3
glass cone 8 glaze. He uses a trip hammer mill run by the stream near
his studio. Balanced at opposite ends of a 20 ft elevated beam are a
bucket to collect diverted water and a 1 inch diameter steel rod. The
water fills the bucket tipping it down and dumping the contents which
rocks the other end firmly down where the pointed steel rod thumps into
an inverted pyramid shaped container of glass. It goes day and night
converting soda bottles, window panes and mayonnaise jars into powdered
glass. I have seen similar mills used to pound clay in Japan as well.
I would like to figure a way to hook up my dog to a pug mill (no shes a
lab) to mix clay so she can earn all of those milk bones.
Bob Chance
http://www.furman.edu/~chance/chance.html
Richard Gralnik on wed 29 jan 97
A couple of us batted this idea around last year and came up with a
pretty cheap, reliable and safe glassmasher -
Get a length of 2" or 3" pipe, a cap for one end and a bell reducer
for the other end. Get a longer piece of pipe that fits inside the
bell reducer, and get a cap for each end of it. Put the two together,
with the thinner pipe through the bell reducer.
1. Put your glass in the bigger pipe, screw on the bell reducer with
the thinner pipe fitted through it.
2. Pull out the thinner pipe as far as you can.
3. Shove it down into the bigger pipe.
4. Go to step 2.
Unscrew the bell end and pour out your glass.
Richard
At 07:03 AM 1/28/97 EST, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Janet, we usually take those large pieces of glass and
>use a mortar and pestle. Please be very careful, pieces
>of glass can jump up into your eyes. We usually put the
>whole mortar and pestle and glass into a plastic bag, with
>the opening of the bag around the pestle so that you have
>space to move. All the best Ralph
>
>
Don Goodrich on wed 29 jan 97
Hi Jan,
Sorry you missed the discussion of this topic last spring (May, I think).
If the archives are available, you may be able to refer to them.
Yes, you can just bash glass with a rock in a bowl (started that way
myself) but it's really messy, even if you do it in a bucket of water to
eliminate dust. The contraption I've been using successfully is made of pipe
fittings, and is the equivalent of a mortar and pestle. Basically, a pestle
is made of a piece of 1" diameter pipe with a cap threaded on each end, and a
mortar is made of a shorter piece of 2" diameter pipe with a cap threaded on
one end. Glass is put into the big pipe and bashed with the smaller one.
Standard iron pipe nipples available at hardware stores work just fine: 8"
long for the wide pipe, 12" long for the narrow one. It helps to wrap a rag
around the open end of the big pipe and the "handle" of the smaller pipe to
keep the dust from flying. Also WEAR A RESPIRATOR as there will be some dust.
Size of the chunks is pretty much controlled by when you stop bashing, and
you can screen using different meshes to select particle size.
What size bits of glass to use depends on how you use them. I usually
powder the stuff and sprinkle it on the bottoms of flat stoneware saucers
that are then used as reflectors in candle holders. A 1/4" thick layer of
glass powder melts into a deep, shiny layer on the clay, with lots of
subsurface cracks that diffract light interestingly. If you prefer to embed
larger bits of glass in wet clay, it will melt (unless you're firing reall
low-temp) and run down the side if it's nearly vertical. Be prepared for
glass drips on your kiln shelves; use a good kiln wash.
Hope this helps. By all means, experiment and tell us what you come up
with.
Don Goodrich enduring winter in Zion, Illinois
David Hewitt on wed 29 jan 97
In message , Janet H Walker writes
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>To the folks who have been messing around with firing bits of glass
>onto their pieces: how do you get the glass reduced into "the right
>sized" pieces? And, maybe, what is the right size?
>
I used to use wine bottle glass. The bottles I would put into a thick
plastic bag, such as that used for supplying clay. I would then drop
this
on a concrete floor to first break the bottle. Then I would break it up
further with a hammer, hitting the outside of the bag containing the
broken bottle. I would keep each colour of glass in a separate bag.
>
>I'm assuming that fingernail sized chunks would be OK.
Finger nail or smaller is not a bad size to aim for. Don't worry is some
bits are smaller, but discard the very fine bits.
>But what I
>have is a showbox full of scraps from someone who does stained glass
>and these are all pieces much bigger than that.
Hit them with a hammer while they are in a thick plastic bag as
described.
> USA
>
David Hewitt
David Hewitt Pottery Caerleon, Tel:- 01633 420647
7 Fairfield Road, Caerleon, Newport, South Wales, UK.
URL http://digitalfire.com/magic/hewitt.htm
Richard Gralnik on thu 30 jan 97
I forgot one additional thing about the patented glassmasher -
put some shot/small fishing weights/etc inside the inside tube
to increase the impact...yes, like a shot hammer. :)
Richard
At 09:11 AM 1/29/97 EST, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>A couple of us batted this idea around last year and came up with a
>pretty cheap, reliable and safe glassmasher -
>
>Get a length of 2" or 3" pipe, a cap for one end and a bell reducer
>for the other end. Get a longer piece of pipe that fits inside the
>bell reducer, and get a cap for each end of it. Put the two together,
>with the thinner pipe through the bell reducer.
>
>1. Put your glass in the bigger pipe, screw on the bell reducer with
>the thinner pipe fitted through it.
>2. Pull out the thinner pipe as far as you can.
>3. Shove it down into the bigger pipe.
>4. Go to step 2.
>
>Unscrew the bell end and pour out your glass.
>
>Richard
>
>
>At 07:03 AM 1/28/97 EST, you wrote:
>>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>>Janet, we usually take those large pieces of glass and
>>use a mortar and pestle. Please be very careful, pieces
>>of glass can jump up into your eyes. We usually put the
>>whole mortar and pestle and glass into a plastic bag, with
>>the opening of the bag around the pestle so that you have
>>space to move. All the best Ralph
>>
>>
>
>
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