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Author: Cindy_Gimbrone, Contributing Editor
| Clean your shorts with diluted vinegar solution or whatever you normally clean your glass rods with. If the ends of the glass rods have melted ends, nip these off with the rod nippers. You want a nice even end. You can use the disk rod nippers or the tile nippers, either will do.
Now that you’ve nipped the ends of the rods, you’re ready to set up your creation! I set up directly into the kiln but you can glue your pieces together at your workbench and carry them over to the kiln once they are dry. If you glue, make sure that the glue is dry before you begin to fuse or you run the risk of creating bubbles from the moisture in the glue |
| I use two layers of the 5-7mm shorts for the textured pendants/pins. I lay the glass shorts next to each other on the bottom of the kiln. |  |
| I lay the second layer of glass shorts at a 90 degree angle (i.e., the opposition direction) from the first layer. In the picture, I show a finished 2 layer piece from the side so you can see how the glass shorts lay on top of each other.
Make other pendants/pins leaving about a 1/2inch in all directions between each piece. The glass is going to melt and you don’t want it melting into one big glob of glass! |  |
| Once you’ve set up all of your pieces, you’re ready to fire up your kiln! My firing schedule tends to err on the cautious side ramping up. My schedule for doing 20-24, 1 to 2 inch, two layer pendants/pins in my front-loading fire brick kiln using a digital controller is:
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| Ramp up to 500 degrees at full speed and hold for 30 minutes
Ramp up to 965 degrees at full speed and hold for 30 minutes Ramp up to 1250 degrees at full speec and hold for 1 hour 30 minutes I check here to see how the fusing is coming along. If you've never fused before - you can open the kiln after the glass is at 1000 degrees. The glass is molten and there will be no chance of thermal shock. When you look into the kiln, be sure to wear your welder’s glasses to protect your eyes. My kiln door latch is too hot to handle with my bare hands over 1200 degrees so I use my Kevlar gloves to open the kiln. Be careful!! It’s hot! Kilns vary, your pieces might be fused enough after this cycle. Usually my pieces aren’t fused enough for me, so I ramp up one more time. Ramp up to 1325 degrees at full speed and hold for 30 minutes Crash cool to about 1000 degrees (crash cool means to open the kiln door to quickly cool the kiln down to 1000 degrees. Do this 100 degrees at a time - that means I hold the kiln door open from 1325 down to 1225 degrees and then close it until I see the temperature stabilize and start to creep back up. Then I open the door to the kiln again and let the temperature fall another 100 degrees, close it until it stabilizes and so on until the kiln temperature has gone down to about 1000. Once the kiln is at 1000 degrees, I close the door and set the controller to anneal the pendants/pins in a 3 phase cycle - Cycle 1 - soak at 965 degrees for an hour Cycle 2 - ramp down to 870 and hold for an hour Cycle 3 - ramp down to 775 and hold for an hour. After that, I shut off the kiln and let if cool to under 200 degrees before I open the kiln. |
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