This is the reflection of my 1st glass casting project.
It's been a long time since I have finish my first printing and casting work until I write about the reflection, that is because I have repeated the whole process another time (as practitioners always say "it never works the first time"). Things turned out to be really successful and I do get much experience from the former failure.
Originally when we are first introduced to the Project 1, I wanted to created something like the mesh, which may be impossible (or very difficulty) for handmade glass, and that is why digital making makes sense. "The size of the artifact, the thickness of the layer, the printing settings and time" Got everything ready, I started my work.
Well the artifact made me sooooo surprised. On the one hand, it didn't work our as I expected: the melted glass didn't flow to the bottom part of the mould, maybe because there was not enough extra glass material or due to the thickness. However, on the other hand it has bright sides: it looks beautiful after all, and gives a feeling of organic structures (which is absolutely different from the 3D printing model). What's more, as you can see in the pictures, from the base to the top the surface turns from matt to shiny, amazing! Then I don't really need to apply too much cold work for the surface treatment. These all came from the unexpected "failure".
Later Geoff gave me a further challenge, to finish the project as I originally designed.
Here is a list of reflections that I got from the artifact:
1. The Project Shapeshifter is a really limited software when choosing different surface settings. We can only change the thickness, but the width is depended on the segment of the vessel. The glass casting only works when the width and thickness are both more than 3mm.
2. The twisting setting is risky. We all know that too much twisting will break the surface and cause problems when printing. According to my own practice, even a slight twisting should be taken into consider because that causes “THE CHOICE OF GLASS”. As shown below, the structure will be reformed according to the twisting, therefore, the glass will chooses a wider path to flow because that's more energy saving, or it's like a matter of chance. As a result, the branches of the artifact are better formed in the clockwise than the anti-clockwise.
3. The air channel is helpful. According to Allen's advice, building the air channel around the mould will help release the air to make it easier for the glass to flow.
Then I started my 2nd version of the casting.
Finally it worked, proving that the 3 reflections really made a big difference.
Comparing these two artifacts, I have a feeling that it doesn't matter which one looks better than the other, what matters more is that in the experiment process, I have gained the ability to control the glass.
