Prepping second layering Mould had to be cleaned which involves hammering off the glass fused to the moulds, scrubbing off the fire scale and removing anything that can possibly fall into the glass. Fibre paper and kiln paper then cut to specifications and moulds lined Due to the firing process, the fibre paper shrinks slightly which means that it is slightly tricky to get the cast back into the mould with the fibre paper, and because of the clean up process, dams are slightl

Making the rest of the Dams Dams Shapes bent and ready to weld The majority of the shapes worked with out an issue welded the small section to the wrong straight so had to cut grind and re-weld back to the right straight. Thats the dams ready for casting. Will use these initial casts to also test how the different colours work in this type of process. #Mountkeen #welding #dams #casting #warmglass #scottishheritage #madeinscotland

Yet another test Adaptions from the previous firing Less height again on the dam lining Longer soak at top temperature The glass placed in dam pre-firing has been cut up smaller to allow glass falling through melt plate more variation in depth Test 1 and 2 combined make the appropriate height for this piece so used them to work out an exact weight in glass. Due to quantity of glass, could probably have done with a bit longer at top temp to get rid of final spike and bubbles.

Trying to address issues from TEST 1 Put it in for a longer soak Fibrepaper pre-fired No kiln paper put on plate ISSUES Results: Still got bubbles, Fibre paper fused to the glass stuck creating a sharp rim, glass leaked through paper and fused with metal. #Mountkeen #tests #materials #warmglass #bullseye #casting #youdontlearnfromsuccess

Working out general aspects of what I want the final to look like. Need light coming up from underneath Deciding whether or not I need a rim round the sides of the glass - Really like the colour coming out from the side. Playing with the idea of the heather under the rock Looking at combing different metals for making the base I think the multiple colours work with the clear glass, but cheapen the coloured (in its current form) Playing with twisting lots of different variatio

Post disaster tweaking Got rid of pink and green design as they had the worst outcomes from previous test. created a 3 variations for each dam shape using the red, purple and black designs Plates made from 2mm stainless steel Had to lower the speed of the cutter from recommended as it didn't cut through cleanly . after cutting the shape out, plates needs ground down with an angle grinder, just to remove any burs Testing with this plate first to make sure any bend in the metal

Using shapes from drawing sketchbook to create relief sculptures in glass Using a mixture of 6mm and 3mm fibre paper Playing with colour on top of the carving to see if the two aspects work together The Carving becomes very subtle under the colour I think as it stands with the colours being put into the mould rather than melted from above the carving works better when it is a really deep carve and when there is less colour. Next stage of the carving process is to work out w