The Making of a Hot Mess: Volume 874

This is really kind of a tutorial for any fellow glassies who have also held on to the itty bitty rod shorts that result at the torch.  Personally I do it for the nookie, and by the nookie I mean I have no idea why I've kept the bits and pieces for the last few years.

This is the process I went through to make this cabochon~ it is time consuming but results in something unique and uses up what would otherwise be wasted glass.

1.  Collect all the little bits and pieces from your torch table

without having a single good reason

or any kind of plan for using them.

2.  Shove 'em in a drawer. 

3.  When that drawer fills up find another drawer.

4.  Accidentally rediscover your Slumpy molds

and make a mental note to try fuse molding those

shorts into cabs.

5.  Have a tropical storm come through

and demolish your beach plans.

6.  Get out some thick canvas and a hammer

so you can beat the crap out of the glass pieces

that are too big for the mold

because today is as good as any

to try out your idea

since

you do not have beach sand between your toes

and you were totally supposed to.

7.  Sort the pieces for color mixing.

8.  Take a blind guess at how much glass needs to be

layered in the mold and slap that sucker in the kiln.

(after coating the mold in kiln wash)

(which is boring)

9.  Ramp up to 1450 and hold for 20 minutes

because you are experimenting

and looking up on the internet to find out

if that is the right way or the wrong way

is also boring.

10.  Open the kiln and discover that only

1 out of 4 actually looks anything like it is supposed to

and they all have jagged sides.

(boo)

10.5 ~ Heads up.  Don't open the kiln to peek because

it turns out those molds don't like the temperature change.

At all.

11.  Take those jagged babies to your shiny shack

and introduce them to the Diamond Max.

12.  Grind the edges smooth.

13.  Put them back in the mold adding more glass

to the really wonky ones and fire 'em again.

14.  You may have to repeat steps 11-13 a couple of times

to get a feel for what exactly is the right amount of glass.

15.  Fin.

~~

Here is a sneaky peek at a repurposed twistie cab

being made into a cuff~

~~