The Bead Report by Kerry S. Caron May 15, 2008 Lynne Chappell, Surrey BC

Welcome to Lynne and Paul's new home Pyros.	View from the porch.
Elizabeth and Cathy chillin before we go out to the shop and see what Lynne is doing tonight.	The men planning what they will do while we are outside.
Home of the new shop.	Lynne starts to explain what she will show us tonight.

The magic ingredient in her studio. In this case she uses it to polish the casting wax.	A silicone rubber mold that was made from wax carvings. This is used to make multiple waxes. These waxes are then invested in a plaster mix, filled with glass and cooked in the kiln.
Two models that we are making a silicone mold from. The one on the left is carved from microcrystalline wax, and the one on the right is a plasitilina modelling clay.	They are laid out on a bed of wet water clay (regular potting clay) to keep them in place and dams built up around them.
This is the RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing) Silicone material. It is mixed 10 to 1 with an activator. There is lots of math involved with this.	The bulk is white and the activator is pink so that you can see that it is thoroughly mixed when the color is even.
All a nice even pink colour. Some silicones are blue or purple as well. This is really sticky stuff.	So the vibrator caused a few giggles, but you don't want air bubbles against your models. This has to cure for 24 hours.

The microcrystalline wax being melted in a container immersed in boiling water.	The rubber molds ready to be filled with wax. The purple ones are RTV silicone (different brand), and the beige ones are a brush on latex rubber. These molds were made from real shells.
Pour the wax, again vibrating out the bubbles.	The cooled waxes from the molds. It only takes about 10 minutes for the wax to cool.
The wax shells laid out on a bed of wet clay which has had some texture laid into it. This will be a relief tile.	Measuring the investment by weight. This is a mixture of water, pottery plaster and silica flour.
Cathy is taking a video.	We all put on masks while Lynne is mixing. The silica flour is not something you want to breathe.
Mixing the investment.	Pouring it into the prepared mold. Vibrator again needed.
The tile we just poured will set up in half an hour, but it needs to dry at least overnight before proceeding. We had another investment that had been poured earlier that week and set it up over boiling water to steam the wax out.	Now the investment is nice and clean and we can fill it with glass frit to put in the kiln.
Here is one that has been fired in the kiln. The glass frit compacts down to about half its volume.	Here is a relief tile where plants and seeds have been used directly to make the investment and just burned out as the glass is fired.
Here, Lynne poured investment into the silicone molds instead of wax, and puts them in the bottom of a mold to make a reverse casting. The walls here are made out of refractory material and wired together to go into the kiln.	An example of the latest rage in casting - freeze 'n fuse. You mix glass frit with water in the silicone molds and put them in the freezer. Then turn them out onto a kiln shelf and fire.
Here are the glass castings from the silicone mold you first saw. Some of these were cast and some were freeze 'n fuse. The freeze 'n fuse are shinier, smaller (they shrink of course!) and don't have the fine detail.	Ahh here the guys are, watching TV.

We enjoyed seeing the kiln casting process, even though most of us lampworkers need instant gratification and wouldn't have the patience for kiln casting. Thank you Lynne.

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