Artistic Uses of Recycled Glass

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Recycled Glass Lamp Project

One of the good things about being inside so much during all of these snowstorms in the Washington, DC area is that I get to catch up on researching how various artists are working with recycled glass.

I came across this talented artist from California on the Warm Glass Board (www.warmglass.com) and I think her level of originality and combination of techniques are amazing. Here is a video on how she makes her lamps.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

What is Plate Glass?

I also use a type of glass called "Plate" glass. Plate glass is defined as "a type of glass which is cast in a solid plate, typically through a roller process. The resulting glass is extremely flat and free of distortions. This type of glass is often used to make windows, and it is also utilized in the manufacture of mirrors, tables, and other objects which require extremely flat glass. There are a variety of different weights of plate glass available, ranging from incredibly thick and highly durable plate glass to more delicate varieties." (source: wisegeek.com)

I usually distinguish standard home window glass from the thicker plate window glass that one would see used in commercial buildings. Plate glass can be seen in auto windows, tabletops, storefronts, showers, or as shelf glass. It is great to cast with since you have large pieces you can break and stack vertically in mold (slightly angled in towards the middle of the mold center) as opposed to the very small puzzle sized pieces of tempered glass.

Here is a video from YouTube showing how plate glass made.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

How Glass Bottles Are Made

Although I use recycled glass in my artwork, did you know that most bottles also have a high recycled glass content since glass can be endlessly recycled? The more recycled glass a manufacturer uses to create a bottle, the greater the energy savings. Some bottles have as much as 90% recycled glass content.

Here is an interesting YouTube video on how glass bottles are made.

Next Steps in the Work on the Castings

Here are some of the next steps in cold working one of my recycled cast glass dragonflies. First, always wear some sort of gloves when using a wet tile saw. I found some lightly padded but non-bulky gloves at Home Depot.

Since I chose to use tempered window glass (which disintegrates into thousands of tiny puzzle sized pieces after you break it), it is impossible to stack the tiny pieces high enough so that they do not move and overflow the edge of the plaster mold. After the first kiln firing (and note that the glass is no longer tempered after this time), I stack more of the glass into any depressions in the mold and fire it again. You can see the excess glass below which must be trimmed off with a wet tile saw. This is an extreme case example below since there is not typically this much glass overflow.

After using a wet tile saw that I filled with water and having it drench me each time I used it, I bought a Ryobi wet tile saw. It allows you to hook it up to a water source (or an alternate pump source). The water only drips on the saw blade and it is easy to use and fairly mess free. Be sure to get a non-segmented saw blade made for ceramics or glass.

I use the wet tile saw to carefully trim off the excess glass around the edges. If there is a sizable piece of excess to trim off, I trim it off in sections versus removing the entire piece all at once. Most of the excess glass is not very thick. After some use, it is easy to become skilled with the wet tile saw and use it almost as a grinder to evenly cold work the piece. But you need to do all of this slowly and let the saw blade do the work. After trimming the excess glass, you can see the cloudy area below where the saw touched the glass. This can be easily fixed with sandblasting which will be covered in the next post.