Taverner Glass

The above images demonstrate a few stages in making a cast glass platter. The first stage in making a platter such as the one above is fusing various coloured strips of glass into rods, these are then cut either by hand or using a saw. The pieces of coloured rod are then rearranged on a kiln shelf with dam walls to prevent overflow and fired to 810 degrees celsius. The product of this firing is then polished by hand on the surface and on the edges using a linisher, a wet belt

One of the trickiest things in designing a glass plate is knowing your colours and how they interact or change upon firing. Picture 2 above shows a selection of the Bullseye Glass Co. range of colours. I use Bullseye Glass Co. exclusively as they are one of the few glass manufacturers producing a range of glass for fusing and casting that is fully compatible, in simple terms this means they have a similar coefficient of expansion so they will expand and contract at similar ra

To achieve greater depth of colour and thickness of the finished platter this piece has been created by cutting strips of glass and turning them edge on. The strips are then placed in a mould in the kiln and heated to 810 degrees celcius. After cooling slowly the glass can be worked on grinding machinery to shape and polish the edges and faces. The glass is then returned to the kiln, placed on a slumping mould and heated to 670 degrees celcius to achieve the final form. #tabl

Individual tiles are cut from coloured sheet glass and assembled. Each tile is hand ground to ensure a precise fit. The tiles are assembled on top of a sheet of clear glass and placed into the kiln. The plate is then fired to a full fuse at 810 degrees celcius. After slowly cooling it is placed on a slumping mould and returned to the kiln. This second process takes place at 670 degrees celcius. Finally, the edges of the plate can be hand polished to acheive a perfect finish.