Bottomless Molds are NOT the same thing as a drop ring. These molds do not have a flat lip as drop rings. They are designed to be fired directly on the kiln washed shelf with varying depths and lips. Some are bowls, plates, platters.....
What is different is that you will always have a FLAT bottom therefore no rocking in your finished piece. Your pieces will also not be like the next guy who is using mass produced molds!
Laurie is hand throwing our new and exciting molds out of a specially formulated high fire clay. Each mold is photographed when it comes out of the kiln . You are getting the one pictured. We are very tired of mold companies selling bisque ware molds which are made for the low fire clay community and are unsuitable for fused glass. The worst part of commercial molds are the rocking bottoms and cracking after only a few uses. With our new bottomless molds, your kiln shelf serves as the bottom molding surface for your glass art. Just kiln wash your shelf and place these molds on it and you will never have a rocking bottom again. (unless of course your shelf is uneven!!) You may also use shelf paper but it is not necessary.
These molds have been sanded and fired to 1900 F degrees. Use your normal slump firing cycle. Of course, if your glass is thicker then slow down. Let the glass and the mold cool in the kiln and these molds will last for a long, long time. We are making them especially sturdy both for the sake of shipping and for the firing. Sponge off the sanding dust and then kiln wash them thoroughly before their first use. I do not recommend Zyp. Expensive and not needed. No need to prefire! When you kiln wash a new mold there is not even a need to dry it before firing. The mold will get plenty dry before the glass slumps into it. You can use them many many times without kilnwashing them again. Just do not scratch the surface of the wash. If you do....just reapply more kiln wash. If it builds up use some smooth sand paper and smooth it down.
The molds pictured on this website are the molds you will receive. The mold pictures will be deleted when a sale is confirmed. Check back often and see what has come out of the kiln. We will vary the style and the sizes of the molds. They are all round even if the photo looks off because of the angle of the shot.
