A Latex-plosion

My latex mould worked out well.  I've made a couple of wax models out of it but I decided I wanted to make a model out of lead so it would be more solid.  My dad's a keen fisherman and makes his own lead weights so I enlisted his help in my mould making quest.

Off we went into the garage and melted the lead in an old battered saucepan over a tiny camp stove.  I set my mould down on the floor and watched as my dad poured the lead.  I don't know why I thought pouring molten lead into a latex mould would work, needless to say, it didn't!  The lead bubbled and spat as it melted away the latex leaving a shiny mirror like puddle on the garage floor.  I think this is what you may call an epic fail!

Success at last

I don't wanna jinx it but I think the fire polishing worked! They came out clean and mark free. Yay! I've still got more to fix but I think this will do the trick.  I can finally get those damn troublesome spoons out of my hair.

Update No. 2

I'm making progress with my messed up spoons.  I'm determined not to let all the glass and hard work go to waste so my next plan of action is gonna be fire polishing.  I'm gonna grind all the manky, ugly bits off, sand them down with a coarse sandpaper then a finer one, then a finer one again then I'm gonna put them back in the kiln for a fire polish that will melt the glass just enough to smooth out the top layer.  I'll let you know how I get on!

Spoon Update

So it turns out it wasn't the alcohol causing the marks.  I think it was caused by grinder markings and because I was rushing a bit, instead of giving them a proper wash I was just wiping with alcohol and not giving a good scrub which didn't clean them up as much as they needed to be.  But I've had a few come up clean nowvso, fingers crossed, I can salvage the others :)

Warning! Alcohol is bad for you!

I've been up and filling my kiln up at 6am most mornings this week.  I've got a couple of lovespoon orders to get through and things just seem to be going wrong.   I did a batch of six spoons that I wanted to get done as soon as possible.  I'd cut them all out and thought they were going to turn out good.  In my attempts to try and speed things up a bit I thought to myself  'alcohol is drying, I'll clean them up with that before I put them in the kiln' So I put a bit of isopropynol on them.  Big mistake. It left a residue on them that even after dremmelling it off and refiring twice again didn't get it off, wasted my time, effort and money and generally caused me a whole load of stress.  The moral of the story; don't use alcohol! It is bad for you!!

Mould Attempt No 3

Today I've been attempting to make a mould again.  I've made a model out of clay, am gonna make a latex mould out of that one then fill that up with melted modelling wax then use that model to make a plaster mould.  That way i'll be able to keep the latex mould to fill again and again to make the model exactly the same each time I want to make a new plaster mould, and I intend to make lots of them.  Fingers crossed this will work! 

Help Needed

I'm in the process of making my own moulds for my lovespoons.  Right now it takes me a long time to cut just one so I'm trying to cut that down by using moulds instead.  Problem is I haven't got a clue what i'm doing.  I've read a bit about mould making but I'm just stumbling along, trying to figure things out for myself.  It's not been much of a success so far.  I'm using a mixture of plaster,  grog and flint.  Anybody out there able to lend me a slice of their glass fusing wisdom?  Any help is much appreciated ;)

The Lovespoon

I've been making lovespoons today.  These are proving really popular.  They're really selling well.  I draw up my own designs and work out the best way to cut them so they fuse together well.  I then put them in the kiln and hope all goes to plan.

The cutting process

They come in a nice little box and I even got my mum to write a poem about the tradition of the Welsh Lovespoon.  I think it's a nice little anniversary gift or even just a little token of love to bestow on your beloved one.

The packaged Lovespoon

The Lovespoon and it's tradition