Using paper templates to choose which off-cuts I could cut out from
During the previous week I had bought my own leading sheers, so was able to cut the paper templates with my own sheers. I was now getting very used to the small repeated scissor action when cutting curves. As before these templates were used to mark up the glass for cutting. However when it came to using the pink glass, the most important issue was deciding which side of the glass to mark up and score.
Lamberts Gold Pink on Clear is a 'flashed glass'. When scoring flashed glass you need do this on the unflashed side. If you score on the flashed side, the wheel may only penetrate the thin flashed surface leaving the thicker base glass unscored and this can cause the glass to break unpredictably. So my first job was to find which side was which. I found this very hard, as it was not easy to spot the difference.Flashed glass is a type of specially produced mouth-blown sheet glass. Colouration is created by means of the flash technique, hence the name. The clear or tinted carrier glass is over-laid with one or two layers of coloured glass.
Once cut you can see the thin coloured glass layer by looking at the side as in the illustration above. However my new glass sheet had 'soft' edges due to its manufacturing process, which also means that it can be thicker towards the edge where it finishes, so you also need to avoid this when marking up.
The sheet of pink glass had been cut from a larger sheet, so had a sharp edge
My sheet had a label stuck to the flashed side, but I wasn't sure whether this was just chance and I had to look carefully for 'clear spots' in order to decide. I needed to keep checking with Jo-Ann which side was which and didn't yet feel confident. More experience with various different sheets of glass will I'm sure help, at the moment the fact that flat glass sheets are made in different ways is just part of the learning curve.
I marked up the glass first of all by dividing it, into a strip that could then be used to cut out my shapes. This seems like a way of wasting glass, but I was assured that in this way, each section is easier to handle and therefore you get less breaks and any mistakes cant damage the whole sheet.
Two paper templates were placed on the full sheet and it was marked for cutting and then cut
Paper templates are now drawn around and are then scored and cut out
When scoring deep curves, which some of my shapes had, I needed to do this as a series of shallow curves. Otherwise, the glass might break off in its own direction. A later use of a grinder will finish these off, but they need to be as precise as possible.
Because I was new to the cutting process, I was still getting the weight right and I did tend to put too much weight on my cutter, something that Jo-Ann could pick up by listening to how loud the scoring sound was. The more I cut the more I was able to control this. Much of the learning resides in your body muscles and you cant quite describe it in words. How you hold the glass cutter, how one hand guides the other, how you twist your body to ensure the cutter follows a smooth curve, how you need to lower your body, so that your eye level coincides with the action of the scoring, and how you keep focused on the drawn line as the cutter wheel moves along it, are all essential things to do and they are seamlessly integrated in the doing. It was also important to remember between each scoring to use the dustpan and brush to remove any traces of glass splintering from the cutting surface.
At the end of a day's cutting I had 15 sections and I need just over 80
Although working slowly I managed to get all the pink glass pieces cut out and I was able to check on how they were beginning to visually work, by placing them on the lightbox. Finally I lightly taped each cut section to its paper template, so that it was easy for me to check its number and position in relation to the cartoon and then on the cartoon circled in red all the numbers of the pieces that had been cut so far.
During the process of cutting the pink I had made one bad mistake and this was when cutting the piece for the arm, which I had tried to do in one. The glass was broken in the wrong place, (I could now see clearly why I needed to do the scoring using smaller sections rather than trying to cut out everything from the whole sheet), I had tried to break my glass along a curved scored line by using pliers that were not placed close enough to the score. Jo-Ann pointed out that perhaps the piece was too big anyway and that I could make it in two separate sections. I had to go back to the cartoon, adjust it and number the additional piece. Then cut out a new template and find a pink off-cut out of which to cut the new addition. A useful experience as I realised that what seems like a fixed thing once the cartoon is drawn up, can still be adjusted in response to what happens.
Course frits, fine frits and powdered frits
I then turned my attention to the fused glass section. During the week this had been fired and it had several holes in it which would make it very difficult to cut, so I needed to fill these and sort out the edges which were splayed out blobby shapes. I used various frits; course and fine as well as power to do this. As I filled the holes I was hopefully able to keep the design working. Finally I used clear frit to hold it together. The big issue here was thickness. I had to make sure it was not too thick or too thin, as this fused glass section has to fit into the same leading as all the other types of glass used. Finally I used fine frit to cover the 'mess' around the edge, so that on firing it should be less blobby. Nb before starting making these additions I placed the fused frit circle over my cartoon to check it was about 1cm bigger all round than the shape I was finally going to need.
Fused frit circle with additional mixed frit and a layer of clear frit to make sure all holes are filled
This work was done on a kiln shelf and then other pieces were added from other people, so that there was no wasted space in the kiln. (I.e. to not just do what you want to do in the middle of a shelf, leave room for others)
Finally all my pink offcuts were put in the bottom of a plastic container, the remaining pink sheet was put away in a safe spot in the glass rack and I covered the offcuts with cardboard, so that all my cut pieces could be laid flat and one slightly longer piece that I thought was more fragile, was individually wrapped in cardboard and this container was put away for next week.
Offcuts and cut pieces collected together in a plastic container.
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