The Tack Bail Tutorial

The Tack Bail

Mike, from Innovative Glass Designs by Mike, made a new bail and asked me how I thought fusers may use it! His initial idea was to tack it onto a scene and run little fairy lights through the holes. This would totally work and I'm spinning ideas for it now, however my initial thought was to try fusing it to the top of something. Here was my idea:

I took a 1/4 by 1.5 inch strip of glass (I've since increased it to 1.75" long and 2" long) and balanced it over the top of a 1" Stainless Steel pipe sprayed with ZYP and gently placed the bail directly in the center. (I've since smartened up and now glue the bail in the center first, then placed it on the pipe) This required some thinking. I wanted it to get it hot enough to fuse them together, but if too hot the bail would start to slump over. I had pretty good success with this fusing schedule:

300>1150>30
350>1285>5
9999>950>1 hour
150>700>10
300>room temp

I did have it slightly hotter the first time (closer to 1300F) but there was more movement of the bails at that temp and they moved slightly, but not too bad! It also depended where they were in my kiln as I have a few hot spots, too. I'll experiment a little bit more and see if I can take it down to about 1275 and still have a good fuse. The great thing is you can error to underfusing and put them back in for another go. If you go in too hot then your project may have a droopy bail. :)

After the tack bail was fused on successfully, I cleaned it well, then laid them down on the kiln and filled the insides. Here was my first attempt with the purple glass and pink murrini! I again filled the bail hole, then cut the murrini 1/4 tall so it was even with the glass. I took a sliver of Papyrus paper and put up against the murrini and placed a little kiln shelf post up against it to hold them together! It was lovely! (and my sister snatched it)

My second firing schedule was similar to the first only I took it to 1300 with no hold.

300>1150>30
350>1300>0
9999>950>1 hour
150>700>10
300>room temp

This made me realize the bail hole needs to be facing toward the long part of the glass so chains can go through without any other kind of jump ring.

Next I made these:

My favorite piece so far!

Then I tried these shapes and designs! Again the ideas are endless!!

I'll continue to fine-tune the temps on this project...but everyone will need to run their own tests as the temps in everyone's kilns are so different and 10 degrees will make a difference. If you can watch it droop, then skip to the next step in your program, that will be ideal! Thank you Helen for that idea! I usually run my kilns at night and don't think about peeking at certain temps.

Mike now has a loop with a flat top and a flat bottom. Stay tuned for more ideas using these!