Jack and Ball

The jack and ball are inside the plaster molds that are then in very tall terracotta pots with sand in the bottom just in case the molds don't hold and there is a glass flowing accident. the s96 nuggets are placed on top of the molds in another terracotta pot to melt and flow through the sprue to the void in the mold... the large chunk of glass you can see in the smaller pot is a 3 lb glass plug I made to slow the flow of glass allowing the inside of the molds to heat up closer to the temp of the flowing glass .

top pot is the ball mold with 16 lbs of glass in the reservoir... also notice the wire reinforcement at the top of the mold the wire is wrapped around the mold about 1/2 inside the plaster.

bottom pot is the jack with 5 lbs of glass all crystal clear s96 nuggets. the jack had 5-6 layers of brush on plaster/silica then I poured the plaster/silica with sand added to give it strength ... it worked out nicely... I think the result was very smooth because of the brush application.

demolding the jack the glass reservoir is at the bottom of the picture.

jack and ball had lots of fissures and the jack is missing a ball on the end where the reservoir is (at the back of the jack )

lots of fissures and dimples on the ball

I am going to remake the ball and add colour to it and repair the jack ...stay tuned...

well I fired the jack and ball in my casting kiln the one I built last summer from a free potters kiln.... 3 zone 36" around x 36"deep. It was perfect size for this project.. I had made the plaster molds before a month vacation and was surprised how wet they were when we came home.... anyway after 10 days in the kiln I took them out yesterday ... for me this has been a very difficult project which I find stimulating for sure. the ball is whole but lumpy from vents pushing against the beach ball pattern... it is too large in scale for the jack ... I also think the ball would look better with colour added to the s96 nuggets I used... I thought about this before but I really wanted to look at 15 lbs or so of clear glass and see how it looked.

I am going to try a different technique for the ball pattern this time I am going to cover a Styrofoam ball with multiple layers of wax and then make a plaster/silica mold . I will "melt" out the Styrofoam with paint thinner and then steam out the wax....I would like to make the ball the rubber red I remember from childhood not sure of the yet. I am making a 6" ball this time so we will see how it looks ...


the jack turned out better than I expected but again far from perfect....after doing some more cold work= cutting, grinding, polishing I will need to fix some of the errors with wax remold it in plaster/silica and then fire it again.