Pitting on pot melt

[saforrest]

I’ve just finished my first ever pot melts and they both have “pitting” on the top surface. On the first one, I cold worked the edges and sand blasted the top and bottom surfaces. Then I put it back in the kiln and re-fused. I did a full fuse thinking that the pits were as a result of bubbles coming to the surface that just hadn’t quite worked themselves out. The edges came out beautiful and the top surface is beautiful, except there are still small “pits” on it.   Is this just a characteristic of pot melts?  I haven’t noticed them on pics of other people’s pot melt projects I’ve seen. Anybody have any thoughts?

 

This is the firing schedule I used on the orig potmelt

300 deg to 1000 deg. Hold 20 min

400 deg to 1700 deg. Hold 60 min

FULL to 1500 deg. Hold 45 min

FULL to 950. Hold 60 min

200 deg to 100. Hold 0

 

This is the schedule I used for the last firing to fire polish and try to remove the pits

250 deg to 1150 deg. Hold 30 min

200 deg to 1370 deg. Hold 30 min

300 deg to 1460 deg. Hold 10 min

FULL to 950 deg. Hold 60 min

200 deg to 800 deg. Hold 10 min

300 deg to 100 deg. Hold 0

 

[Stephen Richard]

Pot and mesh melts are full of tiny bubbles.  These migrate to the surface each time the piece is fired.  One way to overcome this is to do a firing with the (final) side down to the shelf.  Take it to a fuse temperature.  Cool and clean.  Flip it over and do the fire polish for the final top side,  This will reduce the number of pin holes in the top surface, even if it does not totally eliminate them.

Stephen Richard

blogs at: http://www.verrier-glass.blogspot.com/ and  http://www.glasstips.blogspot.com/

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