How To Make A Ceramic Mold For Glass Slumping

Glassworkers usually slump their medium over metal molds and into ceramic molds.

How to make a ceramic mold for glass slumping.

This tutorial will explain how i make custom ceramic texture molds to create fused glass art items used in this tutorial 1 firing the clay and glass kiln. To complete the slumping process take your glass through heating and cooling processes. Custom ceramic texture molds for fused glass. Plates are essential for glass studios.

Hump molds are used to form the interior of the slumped glass. Both are placed inside the kiln and the kiln is fired up. Prop it up on shelf posts and lay a small piece of shelf paper between the posts and the mold if they haven t been coated in kiln wash. The key is to make the mold out of the right material which will withstand the 1 200 degree temperature in the kiln.

Now you can fire your mold to cure the rigidizer according to the instructions that come with your rigidizer. You ll fire the mold without any glass on it. There are two basic types of molds in glass slumping. This newly formed glass is then placed over a ceramic mold.

We offer a variety of mold shapes for slumping glass bottles. I often use smaller triangle shelf posts wrapped in thin fire paper to create an elevated neck on beer bottles for spoon rests. Slumping glass constitutes bending or slumping fused glass over or into a mold. I use a paragon janus 23 multi purpose kiln capable of firing glass or ceramics with the fl.

There s a huge variety of commercial moulds for sale or you can make your own and create something truly unique without too much extra work. This example explains how molds are made from clay. The slumping glass process is used for making bowls platters or decorative 3 d objects. Molds for glass slumping are surprisingly easy to make.

A little more pondering brought me back to my first idea of carving a slumping mold in fiberboard but it would have to be much thicker than before. Slumpy s has a great selection of plate molds dish molds server molds and more. If using a mold it should be covered with a thick coat of kiln wash or glass separator. Mold making for glass art by dan jenkins 3 glass and mirror pieces hot glue gun and glue plastic tubs with cut bottoms for dams kitchen timer the journey begins let s begin to make a mold beginner mold makers often pick objects which have undercuts are overly complicated and can be beyond the scope of their ability at that moment.

Carving 1 thick fiberboard i got my hands on some 1 inch thick fiberboard and decided i would just have to carve the mold as i did in my first attempt but not go all the way through the bottom. This will prevent the fiberboard from fusing to the posts.