Slumping Glass over Steel

I wanted to slump a glass sheet over the top of two heads made out of steel.  My first attempt the glass broke.  The glass was too close to the heating elements in the kiln lid.

So I eliminated the steel rods supporting the heads and welded the heads directly to the steel plates.  I also covered the glass with kiln shelf paper. 

The combination of the two items prevented the glass from breaking.  The only problem was that the glass only slumped around the edges.  The steel also reacted with the air because of the high temperature.  The shop vacuum cleaned up the kiln, and sand blasting cleaned up the steel head.  The lessons learned: don’t use steel in the kiln – use stainless steel, and don’t expect the glass to mold itself around several objects. 

Humming Bird

I decided to try to make a humming bird.  The tulip and the humming bird’s wings, I purchased from King Architectural Metal.  The base is made of scrap pieces of steel.  I covered the base using 7024 welding electrodes.  I painted everything except for the base using One Shot Paint.  The base was painted using DuPont ChromaClear.

Fused Glass Space Ship

Another project combining steel with fused glass.  The steel background is 22” by 28”.  It consists of ¹/₈” steel plate with ¾” by ¹/₈” steel strap welded around the perimeter.  The fit was not perfect, but I was able to bridge the gap with welding.  Sometimes it takes a second attempt to eliminate the welding flaws.  The surface was ground eliminating the mill scale leaving a shiny surface.  The surface was painted using a transparent air brush paint.  Then multiple coats of DuPont ChromaClear were sprayed on over the entire surface leaving a high gloss finish.