Step 4: Assemble for Firing

You now have your fiber paper (marked for leaf placement) and your powder-coated leaves.  All that is left to do is assemble the pieces and fire the project.

Using the registration marks you created at the start, carefully place the powder-coated leaves on the fiber paper.  A small spatula or palette knife will help you lift the leaves without disturbing the fragile powder.  Lifting the leaf from multiple positions will help to keep it from bending under the weight of the powder.  For best results, avoid having to reposition the leaves once you have set them on the fiber paper.  The more the pieces are handled the greater the chance that powder will come loose and fall off the leaves.

Once all the leaves are positioned, move the fiber paper and leaves to the kiln shelf (if it isn’t there already).  Here’s what it looks like:

Clean the base glass and place it carefully and straight down on the powder-coated leaves.  This will cause a lot of the powder to come loose from the leaves so you do not want to lift the glass to reposition.  Your piece is ready to fire:

Okay, we are ready to fire our project.