jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Apr 8, 2018 20:20:22 GMT -5
jamespYou asked: Have you had experience with reactive materials ? Only experience is my HS experiments. Put copper and iron shavings between glass. Also mixed them with ceramic glaze. Impressed with some of this glass with the reactive components. Gives a nice earthy appeal instead of the bold color routine. I figured you may have scavenged materials from around the farm to try out. These small melts lend themselves to experimenting.
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Post by fernwood on Apr 9, 2018 5:06:56 GMT -5
You could always try encasing a slice of rock between glass for a type of shadow box effect.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Apr 9, 2018 6:11:58 GMT -5
You could always try encasing a slice of rock between glass for a type of shadow box effect. BB sized gem garnets sandwiched OK between 2 sheets with only minimum coefficient fractures. Garnet powder would do fine if not laid down to thick. Silicon carbide shattered the glass, it did not do well at all. Silica sand does well if it is no bigger than salt and not laid down too heavy.
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Apr 9, 2018 9:48:39 GMT -5
Very very nice Jim... Thumbs up
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Post by nowyo on Apr 9, 2018 22:04:40 GMT -5
That glass thing sure seems to be working. Really like the colors.
Russ
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on May 5, 2018 5:07:47 GMT -5
That glass thing sure seems to be working. Really like the colors. Russ Thanks nowyo. are you still coarse tumbling in those steel tanks ? I went from sch40 PVC to SDR 17 HDPE, a factory made end cap and a 6X4 or 8x6 reducer welded together using 2 teflon frying pans on the stove and Fernco caps. Has to be the best tumbling barrel I ever had. Fairly quiet and very wear resistant.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on May 5, 2018 5:22:27 GMT -5
Very very nice Jim... Thumbs up Well I recently had some slight bruises on the glass at the Lot-O polish step. Old nightmares. I guess the 80F weather bowed the board in the center where the lot-o and the concrete blocks were sitting allowing the concrete blocks to see-saw a bit. It made the lot-o sound like it was speeding up and slowing down about every second, sounded like a classic harmonic vibration setting up or instability. The varying sound was the glass rattling on and off bruising it. Lifted the whole rig and laid a towel folded twice in thickness and then set the concrete block/lot-o rig back down to prevent the rocking motion. Problem solved. Moral of the story, ground your lot-o well.
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Post by nowyo on May 8, 2018 22:52:34 GMT -5
That glass thing sure seems to be working. Really like the colors. Russ Thanks nowyo . are you still coarse tumbling in those steel tanks ? I went from sch40 PVC to SDR 17 HDPE, a factory made end cap and a 6X4 or 8x6 reducer welded together using 2 teflon frying pans on the stove and Fernco caps. Has to be the best tumbling barrel I ever had. Fairly quiet and very wear resistant. Still have the steel tank, works great but not running it right now. Too noisy. At the place in Wyoming it wasn't an issue bu here we have closer neighbors. When I can get some stuff caught up I'll try to build an insulated box and see how that goes. I had made some barrels out of sched 40 PVC and they worked great, just need to redo my setup to work at the new place. The HDPE sounds like a great idea. Russ
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on May 9, 2018 6:38:12 GMT -5
Thanks nowyo . are you still coarse tumbling in those steel tanks ? I went from sch40 PVC to SDR 17 HDPE, a factory made end cap and a 6X4 or 8x6 reducer welded together using 2 teflon frying pans on the stove and Fernco caps. Has to be the best tumbling barrel I ever had. Fairly quiet and very wear resistant. Still have the steel tank, works great but not running it right now. Too noisy. At the place in Wyoming it wasn't an issue bu here we have closer neighbors. When I can get some stuff caught up I'll try to build an insulated box and see how that goes. I had made some barrels out of sched 40 PVC and they worked great, just need to redo my setup to work at the new place. The HDPE sounds like a great idea. Russ I see the issue with the noise. Going to mention, that HDPE is a heck of a tough pipe and quite a bit softer. Used and specified for highly abrasive mine slurry. Thick walls. the weld on the stove top was real easy for me.
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victoriaheir
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Member since October 2018
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Post by victoriaheir on Oct 16, 2018 14:11:17 GMT -5
vegasjames Looks like they took 2 sheets of clear 3mm and melted their stuff between it. Then slumped it to an ~shallow ashtray shape. Victoria stone ? Blue or green ? What are you heating with, acetylene ? Is it glass or true stone you are using ? I am working on blue first. I am not going to go in to a lot of details on what I am doing. I spent 2 solid months doing a lot of intense research on the topic and have a lot of it figured out. Acetylene would be overkill and would actually destroy the stone. And I doubt the story about Imori using natural crushed stone for a very simple reason. Impurities. Even trace amounts of impurities could have adverse reactions such as masking colors, altering crystal patterns, etc. And naturally occurring rock as to many impurities. There is one ingredient that would have been natural because I have not heard of any synthetic for it. But I think most of the ingredients were either synthetic or purified. I am not sure how many of the ingredients I bought are purified or synthetic. My first attempt though did not work right because of impurities. When I went back and looked closer at the analysis of the natural ingredients I saw the problem and have ordered new materials that are pure to try this again. I ended up with some beautiful dark blue glassy material, but too porous to be of use. So I plan to grind it down in to a powder for future experiments.
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Post by vegasjames on Oct 17, 2018 2:01:09 GMT -5
I am working on blue first. I am not going to go in to a lot of details on what I am doing. I spent 2 solid months doing a lot of intense research on the topic and have a lot of it figured out. Acetylene would be overkill and would actually destroy the stone. And I doubt the story about Imori using natural crushed stone for a very simple reason. Impurities. Even trace amounts of impurities could have adverse reactions such as masking colors, altering crystal patterns, etc. And naturally occurring rock as to many impurities. There is one ingredient that would have been natural because I have not heard of any synthetic for it. But I think most of the ingredients were either synthetic or purified. I am not sure how many of the ingredients I bought are purified or synthetic. My first attempt though did not work right because of impurities. When I went back and looked closer at the analysis of the natural ingredients I saw the problem and have ordered new materials that are pure to try this again. I ended up with some beautiful dark blue glassy material, but too porous to be of use. So I plan to grind it down in to a powder for future experiments. I am using raw materials, but not glass.
I have my doubts about a lot of the Imori story including the claim he used crushed up stone. That makes no sense since coloring can occur from traces of impurities and so if he really used crushed stone as the story goes then there would be no quality control especially over color. Also impurities could cause other problems such as with crystallization, other unwanted crystal formation within the stone and as with my first try with melting. I say unwanted crystal formation because Imori's boules actually contained two different crystal structures. The main crystallization being the wispy fibers we commonly see. But the bottom of the boules formed small "star" shaped crystals. This material is more rare and more valuable.
The process is done with a kiln set up. Acetylene would actually destroy the crystals.
My focus right now is on making the blue. Then if I can pull it off I will work on other colors.
Imori actually has more colors that we we normally see on the chart that shows something like 16 colors. He did have other colors that were preferred outside the U.S. market and he also worked on a synthetic jade that was supposed to be identical to imperial jade.
I hope to get back to work on the project in the next few weeks. Rewired my kiln with new resistance wire and repaired some wall damage. Still have to fix the bottom of the kiln. During my last experiments I was testing another idea as well. Long story short it ate through the walls of the crucible all along the liquid line and the liquid poured out eating a hole through the bottom of my kiln leaving behind some formed glass and a few stones in the very bottom portion of the crucible that did not dissolve. So I will get that fixed in a few weeks and give it another try now that I figured out my previous error.
Been working on other experiments lately including opal synthesis and a styrofoam 'recycling" project. So far I have formed fibers, a strong glue and my favorite a fluorescent glass from the styrofoam.
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