Muti-Tasking

My new camera was delivered this week! Whoohoo! And as excited as I was to finally get it, I did feel a little guilty opening the new box and taking everything out it its protective plastic. But its great to be able to take pictures again! Thanks to everyone who gave advice on what to look for in a camera. I ended up deciding on a Cannon PowerShot SX110IS. It will take me a while before I've figured out how to really use it.

While my glaze kiln was cooling, I was able to multi-task and get a lot of other things accomplished. I finally got around working on my glass pendants again. It was time to take the cast glass bricks over to the tile saw and slice away. Here's a before shot of the castings. They're each about 4" square and 1/2 " to 1" thick.Slicing these is absolutely my least favorite step in the process! It's loud! (even w/ earplugs) It's messy! (it's a wet tile saw, so water splashes and sprays everywhere. And along with the water comes tiny shards of glass that are being chipped away by the blade.) So it's also kinda dangerous! (Despite my best efforts, I end up having glass pieces everywhere! The floor, the counter tops, my arms, etc.) I kept thinking about how when your arms are clay-messy you can just wipe it off, but glass-messy requires a bit more finesse so as not to cut yourself during both the process and the clean-up.
But here are the slices I ended up with. This is what makes all that "torture" worth it. It's likes slicing open geodes. The colors and patterns inside are beautiful! These will get fired two more times before they're ready to become pendants.
With that step of the glass pendants accomplished, I moved on to working on the wood backings for my tile plaques. I like to try and have the wood/steel ready when the tiles come out of the kiln. For the wood, I use a plunge router to create the key hole to hang them from.
They're then burnt with a small propane torch, cut with a miter saw, and the edges are burnt as well.
Then, I apply 2 coats of satin polyurethane to protect the wood and seal the finish. Now they're ready to be glued to the back of the steel.
I'm taking 1/2 a day off tomorrow, so it might be Monday before I get around to cutting the steel. But I hope to set up my tripod so I can share some pictures with the plasma cutter.

Have a great weekend!

Meagan
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