Week - 1 |
Introduction; glass, glass age, kiln-working purpose, how to use the standard schedules, basis of the schedules |
Week - 2 |
History of Glass |
Week - 3 |
Kilns; Gas/electric, brick/fibre, frontloader/”top hat”, size/shape, fast/slow |
Week - 4 |
Controllers; ramp rate or actual time, number of stages, features, some consequences of digital control |
Week - 5 |
Basic Principles of Glass Firing; up phases, top temperature, crash cooling phase, annealing phase, down phases, typical firing schedule graph, sequence of events during firing |
Week - 6 |
Basic Principles of Glass Firing; up phases, top temperature, crash cooling phase, annealing phase, down phases, typical firing schedule graph, sequence of events during firing |
Week - 7 |
Firing Varibales; thickness of glass, form of glass, type of glass (annealing temperatures, down phase temperature settings), |
Week - 8 |
Firing Varibales; type of kiln (heating from one side or both sides), uneven heating and thermal mass, mould materials and their limitations, avoiding and inducing devitrification, advantages of reduced speed, advantages of maximum speed, the importance of records |
Week - 9 |
Physical and chemical properties of glass |
Week - 10 |
Optical properties of glass, chemical durability of glass |
Week - 11 |
Glass formation techniques |
Week - 12 |
Glass formation techniques |
Week - 13 |
Technical Considerations; nature of glass, colour in glass, surface tension, co-efficient of thermal expansion, viscosity, viscosity ranges. |
Week - 14 |
Technical Considerations; Annealing, toughening, low temperature fusing, span/temperature ratio, useful refractories, thermal shock, termal mass, float glass specifications. |