Tips for Creating little Vases

[Patertiska]

Hi Tosca

I have been experimenting with vases the last few months with fun results.  My first attempts were with tomato juice cans, a little fibre paper over the top & around the sides & voila … brilliant,,,, except !!! the ring at the base of the can was stuck in the glass.  Fortunately my brother came to the rescue with “brickies acid” a 10% solution of hydrchloric acid used to wash messed up mortar from new brick walls.  Absoutely brilliant – dissolved the tin enought to remove it.  So, 10 – 12″ glass squares on an 850ml juice tin. 

Then a friend gave me a ‘real’ glass fuserslumper’s vase mould, unfortunately only 5″ long and of course I wanted taller vases … so, it comes with a warning: When the glass stretches, as it goes past the bottom of the mould, which I prop up on kiln furniture to enhance the length, the glass will fold inunder.  So approx 10″ squares.

But, keep a close eye on the piece when it is stretching to ensure it doesn’t curl in, else you will have the same problem I have …because of the “inward curling” my current piece will now be broken to relased the mould !  Dissapointing, but it’s such fun experimenting.

If using a Stainless Steel mould :You need to heat the mould to apply kiln wash – darn frustrating, I did it in my regular oven which gets to 250C, just kept sliding the shelf out, applying, reheating, reapplying etc until it was all covered.

Best wishes with your endeavours from sunny Perth  39.4C today, and yes, the kiln was still firing.

Patertiska & Pepper