pate de verre foundry

Hey,
I've had some luck sending my waxes to various commercial foundries to be
cast in silver. It took a while to find the right ones, but
it works for me.

I have a few waxes that I'd like to do in the pate de verre technique. Does
anyone know of a pate de verre foundry that can take my waxes and return a
pate de verre glass product? I recently attended the American Craft Council
show in Charlotte, NC and asked a lot of the glass artists there. None knew
of such a place.

PW
www.eliasbing.com

On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 19:38:30 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry "Paul WIlson"
wrote:

Hey,
I've had some luck sending my waxes to various commercial foundries to be
cast in silver. It took a while to find the right ones, but
it works for me.

I have a few waxes that I'd like to do in the pate de verre technique. Does
anyone know of a pate de verre foundry that can take my waxes and return a
pate de verre glass product? I recently attended the American Craft Council
show in Charlotte, NC and asked a lot of the glass artists there. None knew
of such a place.

PW
www.eliasbing.com


Pate de verre methods are probably not something most jewelers (denizens of
rec.crafts.jewelry) are likely to have a lot of knowledge about. You might want
to try asking this over on the rec.crafts.glass newsgroup instead.

If you had a decently sized (for your models) kiln with a decent controller of
some sort, you could probably do this yourself. As I recall from dim art school
memories, , the process isn't all that technically difficult beyond getting the
firing temp/time right...

For those on this group unfamiliar with the termp, it's a method by which a mold
in refractory material (such as casting investment or other such materials,
possibly even just plaster) is overfilled with crushed glass, which may be any
mix of colors or layers of colors, different opacities, etc. The mold is then
slowly fired in a kiln, reaching a temperature sufficient to slump all that
crushed glass together, but not quite hot enough to fully melt it into a puddle.
So what ends up after a slow annealing cooling cycle (a couple days, as i
recall), is a sintered glass product, usually opaque to transluscent, which can
have various colors and patterns according to how the mold was packed with
crushed glass in the first place. Quite different from the more common
transparent blown class or other products made from fully molten glass, Pate de
vere (literally, from the french, glass paste) is usually made in fairly simple
or chunky forms, since it's not as easy to get very delicate or thin/flowing
shapes. An interesting technique with an end product that can be very
aesthetically pleasing when done well..

Peter

When Peter W.. Rowe, put fingers to keys it was 11/5/06 2:24 AM...

... Pate de
vere (literally, from the french, glass paste) ...

I just ran across this last night, and it sort of applies.
Especially the caution.

http://on9now.com/video/v554.html

it's an interesting way of crushing glass.

- CW

Paul WIlson wrote:
Hey,
I've had some luck sending my waxes to various commercial foundries to be
cast in silver. It took a while to find the right ones, but
it works for me.

I have a few waxes that I'd like to do in the pate de verre technique. Does
anyone know of a pate de verre foundry that can take my waxes and return a
pate de verre glass product? I recently attended the American Craft Council
show in Charlotte, NC and asked a lot of the glass artists there. None knew
of such a place.

PW
www.eliasbing.com


Just seen your post- have been working away from home.
It was in Limojes
(the famous french center of vitreous enamelling during the middle
ages and beyond,)
where I saw a similar technique used in an unusual way in the 1970's..
It was a fairly coarse frit built up in heavy modelling ,up to 1/2 in
high in sea wave form on a allready enamelled copper vase some 18in high..
It was fully self supporting and covered the whole of the vessel.
Now if the enamellers could do this without it being supported it
might just be possibe to sinter your ideas without an enclosing mould.
Just a thought.
Similarly going a lot further back in time, to the period of the
Pyramid builders in Egypt, they produced many thousands of blue faience
beads which my pottery friends have told me were sintered glass with
cobalt oxide colouring.
Wether these were ground and polished after sintering is difficult to
surmise.
Like any technique, it would pay to runlots of test firings developing
forms from the simple pyramid to squares and on to colums of various
heights,
to see just how high one could go without it collapsing.

If you have seen any of the pottery cones used as temperature gauges in
various parts of a studio pottery firing., one can see
through the peep holes in the red of the kiln the various cones bending
over to differnt extents to indicate the temperature reached.
Ive watched many hundreds of enamel plaques in my enamelling kiln go
from the unsupported dusting of the enamel through the sintering stage
right to the point where it all flows together to form a glossy surface.
the frit is held in place till it starts to fuse with gum arabic.

"ted frater" wrote in message
...

[Snip]

Similarly going a lot further back in time, to the period of the
Pyramid builders in Egypt, they produced many thousands of blue faience
beads which my pottery friends have told me were sintered glass with
cobalt oxide colouring.
Wether these were ground and polished after sintering is difficult to
surmise.

[While the ancient Egyptians did pioneer the use of sintered glass, mostly
as a substitute for rare colored stones used in inlay (such as in King Tut's
funereal jewelry), if these beads are really faience then the process of
making them was somewhat different. This is a clay that's rich in soluble
salts that rise to the surface as a fragile incrustation as the clay dries.
When the beads (or other objects) are placed into a kiln without dislodging
the effloresence and fired, the surface crystals melt and form a glaze,
typically blue-green in color (due to copper oxides) although other colors
are possible. This kind of clay is also called "Egyptian paste"; there are
some recipes in this Clayart thread:
http://www.potters.org/subject13698.htm ]

Andrew Werby
www.unitedartworks.com

"Paul WIlson" wrote
Hey,
I've had some luck sending my waxes to various commercial foundries to be
cast in silver. It took a while to find the right ones, but
it works for me.

I have a few waxes that I'd like to do in the pate de verre technique.
Does
anyone know of a pate de verre foundry that can take my waxes and return a
pate de verre glass product? I recently attended the American Craft
Council
show in Charlotte, NC and asked a lot of the glass artists there. None
knew
of such a place.

Pate de verre workers are spread pretty thin. The meticulous nature of the
work makes it a labor of love. I work in pate de verre, though not with the
lost wax technique.

Ellen Abbott and Mark Leva do very nice work. I have no idea whether or not
they would be interested in a collaboration. http://www.emstudioglass.com/

Gloria Badiner at Arts & Artifacts studio also does some pate de verre work.


You could also post your question at the warmglass website bulletin board.
The people there are very helpful. http://www.warmglass.com/phpBB/index.php

Good luck with your search,

Debbie