Working with soft glass help!!!

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Hi,

I have a project I am working on that requires pressing of soft glass. I have a mold (male and female) I want to melt the soft glass to molten liquid like state and poor or drip it into my Stainless steel (female) mold and then bring the top male mold down into the female side pushing the molten glass between the male and female molds or dies. I will have these mounted in an arbor press.

I need to find a small glory hole or melting furnace, what temperature do I need to melt the soft glass fully? Any suggestions on furnaces/ kilns or glory holes?

Where can I buy clear soft glass chips or sand?

What temperature and for how long do I need to anneal for?

I have done some basic glassblowing with Borosilicate only.

Thank you

John

[menty666]

If you don't mind kiln fusing/slumping instead, rent the Hiuguchi video (http://smartflix.com/store/video/1331/Pate-de-Verre) to give you some idea of how she makes her cabbage leaves using two part molds and gravity/weight.

Other than that, you're looking for cullet most likely unless you buy the sys 96 chips from somewhere like Delphi. Bullseye makes/sells billets too you might look into

btw, No disrespect intended, but from the questions you're asking, starting from batch (sand, flux, etc) is more than you want to get into.

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Hi Menty,

Thank you for you information and ideas!

Yes chips will be much easier than the sand route.

What type of furnace or glory hole would you use?

Thank you

John

[menty666]

A really hot one? *ba dum dum*

I don't know, I don't do furnace work but you might look into a crucible kiln. A larger furnace wouldn't make sense if you're not going to use it daily since they cost a fortune to run 24/7. That'll give you a lower cost option, it's easy to pour small amounts, etc. A lot of it depends on how often you'll be using it, how big you're working, etc.

There are some here (http://cdvkiln.com/menuglas.htm) you can check out for an idea.

annealing times will vary depending on the glass, thickness of the piece, etc.

[melt]

kiln casting would be the easiest way to do this. plaster molds if you can get away with it, depends on your design.

if you really have to stick with the metal molds you can find someone with a hot shop and drop hot gathers into the mold, press the mold together and pop it out and anneal. no arbor press, you do not need much pressure if done right (hot)

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Hi Melt,

I have the Stainless steel molds, I made them on my 3 axis cnc milling machine.

Does anyone know of a "hot shop" around or near Mississauga or Toronto Ontario Canada?

Thank you

John

[somewhere]

if you really have to stick with the metal molds you can find someone with a hot shop and drop hot gathers into the mold, press the mold together and pop it out and anneal. no arbor press, you do not need much pressure if done right (hot)

I agree to build a furnace and glory for one project doesn't really make sense. Seek out your local hot glass studio and go from there. One problem your going to have is stainless won't work very well for hot casting to many reasons to explain. Ductile iron is the way to go for hot casting. You can slump into stainless but to try Pate-de-verre, frit-de-verre, hot casting or kiln casting is going to give you problems.

Where are you located?

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Hi Somewhere,

Why won't stainless steel work?

I am near Toronto Ontatrio Canada.

Here is a photo of the part from my CAD drawing. It is hollow inside and has a wall thickness of 5/32 or 4mm.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r171/haford2/glasshood.jpg

[HiAltitude]

When cooling, the SS will contract more than the glass, cracking the glass. That's why fusers slump over SS, not into it. You should do some research on a warm glass or glass casting site. There are lots of good books on glass casting too. I like "Techniques of kiln-formed glass", Keith Cummings; "Glass casting and moldmaking", Boyce Lundstrom; and "Pate de verre and kiln casting of glass", Jim Kervin and Dan Fenton. Plus, any warm glass book will have a section on casting.

[menty666]

If you're doing them solid, keep in mind they'll take a while to soak and cool properly. You might poke around warmglass.com for some info on the pyramid molds and their annealing times just to get an idea of what you might be up against.

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Hi,

I can pre-heat the molds before the glass is poured in, would this help?

Thank you

John

[melted]

no not really. If you really need it hot casted sand cating might work, but i cant resolve what the actual object is. Otherwise as someone else said kiln casting would be a good idea. Lost wax is the first process that would come to mind.

You would be so much better off just having someone fabricate this FOR you.

glasscolor.com sells system 96 cullet ('glass flakes') which you can melt down for hot casting or pack into a mold for kiln casting. They also list some annealing schedules. We hold at 1050 and ramp down slowly depending on the thickness of what we are annealing (for cast work, blown work ussually has same ramp).

Ill send you a PM, I might want to do this project for you.

[melted]

Scratch the sandcasting, didnt realize it was hollow. This item really needs to be slumped. Which is almost as simple as just buyng a kiln.

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Melted,

Sure send me a PM.

John