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Window 2
The Plan
I will make another window, using the lessons learned from making the first one. Hopefully this one will be good enough to incorporate into my first blinker device.
This time I will employ a new technique for creating neater glass circles, and rinse the glass with deionised water after the acid bath. I will also attempt to smooth the kiln/bat wash to get a better bottom surface.
The Doing
I used a circle cutting technique shown in this video. It worked very well and produced quite neat edges on the circles.
As before, I soaked the glass in HCL overnight to remove surface impurities. Afterwards I washed them with tap water, then with deionised water.
I then put them in the kiln at 70°C to dry. Afterwards I found the glass quite dirty. There were mineral deposits and general filth visible on them. This was very disappointing. I suspect the low-grade deionised water I am working with is not actually very pure. I manually cleaned each window by hand to remove as much contamination as possible. I started with paper towel, but that left paper fibres behind on the surface. I switched to chux, but that had a similar issue. I settled on using zeiss individual lens wipes. Even these got a bit ragged when being dragged over the edge of the glass. I had to go through quite a few of them to get the glass clean-ish.
Re-firing window 1, firing window 2 for the first time.
A slower initial ramp than last time. Same peak temperature.