Meniscus mirror: The power of teamwork!
My goal of making meniscus mirrors is in sight! Now that I have a properly shaped cement form and a circle of glass cut out of a used countertop, I just need a computer controlled kiln to heat them up in.
There happened to be an artist showcase near me, so I went and talked to a glass artist. She suggested I could find a kiln by… asking a studio if I could rent space in their kiln. I didn’t realize that was a thing I could ask an artist for.
It worked on the first try! A nice local glass studio offered to do it for cheap, and we had a great conversation about all the infinite ways to manipulate glass for art. They had three huge computerized kilns! The telescope makers are wrong: I learned what I’m doing, heating glass up over a convex mold, is actually called “draping”. It’s not called “slumping” unless it’s a concave mold.
Time to cradle, and then I finally have a lightweight blank!