Nested Slumped Bowls
Here's a neat trick for slumping a set of nested bowls.
First, fuse the bowls as normal. Try fusing three circular
blanks, each slightly smaller in diameter than the others. Even
a single layer glass (like Spectrum baroque) without fusing will work for
this.
Next, slump the bowls as follows. Using a single mold,
place the largest blank into the mold first. Then dust kiln
wash powder over the blank. Use a fairly heavy application of
powder, so that the blank is totally covered.
Once the first blank is dusted with the kiln wash powder, center
the second blank on top of the first. Then add more powder on
the top layer, covering as before. Continue this process until
you've placed all of the bowls into the mold.
Now fire the blanks. Because the pieces are stacked, you
should fire a bit slower than normal (try around 200F/93C per hour).
Also, slump at as low a temperature as possible for your mold, and
definitely less than 1200F/650C. Soak until
the nested bowls slump.
Then anneal and cool. Take care when annealing to consider
the increased thickness of the pieces and anneal accordingly. Allow plenty of time to
cool, then remove the bowls from the kiln, wash away the kiln wash, and enjoy.
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Copyright 2005 Brad Walker.
All rights reserved.
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