Spent a week trying to get a clean seal on a simple 8-inch bubble

The issue was my glory hole temp, which I had set way too high based on some old advice. It took me 7 full days of blowing and cracking before I dialed it back by about 200 degrees and got a perfect seal on the first try. Anyone else have a basic skill that took an embarrassingly long time to nail down?

3 comments

3 Comments

leow9022d ago

I had the same thing happen with my kiln when I was learning to slump plates. I was running it way too fast, like a full ramp rate of 900 degrees per hour, because a guy at the studio swore by it. Everything came out stressed or with tiny cracks. It took me a month of ruined pieces to finally just try a slower, 300-degree ramp. The difference was insane, like night and day. Sometimes the old advice just doesn't work with your specific setup.

derek_ramirez22d ago

Yeah I read somewhere that super fast ramping can trap air bubbles or cause uneven heating, even in a well-calibrated kiln. It makes sense that going slower gives the glass time to relax into the mold without stress points. That guy at your studio might have had a totally different kiln model or even used a different type of glass. It's wild how one piece of advice can set you back weeks.

adam6754d ago

Read a forum post once where someone said their kiln manual was basically useless for actual glass work. They had to ignore the factory settings and just learn by cracking a bunch of pieces.