Stacked Square Plate Tutorial

Posted on August 29, 2019

Lots of visitors to the studio have asked if we can post a tutorial on how to make this plate. Here it is!

What you’ll need:

An 8” square base. I used Black (100).
9 each: 1/2”, 1”, 1 1/2”, 2” squares
Glastac
Craft Cups
Either Clear Steel Needle-Tip Bottle for Glastac, or a thin tipped brush
Bullseye Shelf Primer or Thinfire
Aunt Martha’s Towels or other lint free towel
Spartan Glass Cleaner

Instructions:

Put down 4 craft cups to elevate your 8” square. Choose the colors you like best. Use as many as you want! I chose to have a reaction between each one of my squares. The colors I used were the following:

Sulfur based glass; Canary Yellow (120), Red (124), Spring Green (126)
Copper based glass; Light Cyan (216), Jade Green (145), Egyptian Blue (164)

See the Reaction Chart if you’re not familiar with what reacts to what!

So, there were only 6 colors chosen for the plate. You can choose less or more!

Clean all your glass before beginning. Handle the glass pieces on their edges to avoid finger prints!

After setting up your base, place down your 2” squares. Make sure they are ½” from the edges. That will give you a ½” between the corner 2” squares and the ones you place in between. Use Glastac in the Needle-Tip bottle, or put some in a craft cup and use the brush to hold them in place. Glastac has capillary action. In other words, you do not have to remove your 2” squares. Put a drop of Glastac on each edge of the 2” square using the brush or the bottle and the Glastac will run underneath the squares!

Place the 1 1/2” squares on top of the 2”. Center them as best you can and glue. Then place the 1” squares, center and glue and place the ½” squares, center and glue.

Place your finished piece on a kiln washed shelf or on a piece of 8 ½” thinfire.

Firing Schedule:
300-1100-.20
400-1225-.30
600-1485-.15
9999-900-1.00
100-700-0

For the slump, we used Bullseye’s Square Slumper A (8635)

Firing Schedule:
285-1100-.10
600-1180-.10
9999-900-1.00
100-700-0

Have fun!!