Glass Fusion Techniques

Glass fusion techniques can be a bit daunting to some people, but if you follow a few simple rules you can master the art of glass fusion.

Glass is a mixture of sand, silica and a few more ingredients that I won't go into at the moment.

I suppose the first step is to think of what it is that you would like to create. I say create because that is what you're doing. You are creating a piece formed from two,three,etc...pieces of glass and heating them up to very high temperatures. You are not melting them together but softening them to a point and cooling the piece when you have achieved the look you want. But that is the kiln firing stage and I will go deeper into this at a later date.

The first thing I do when creating a piece is to draw a sketch of what I would like to create. Let`s say for instance I want to create a set of glass coasters. I would have a look at my stock of glass and set out the colours I want in the piece. Most coasters are around 9cm square. My first cuts are to make the four base glasses. This glass can be clear or coloured, whatever takes your fancy. I would normally cut a piece 18cm square and then into four equal pieces. Cutting the glass safely with the glass cutters and a set square, making sure that the piece has broken off cleanly from the sheet.

Next I would cut my top layer of coloured glass to the design that I sketched earlier, play around with some diffrent designs and colours. Adding frit or dichoric glass to the pieces can add some real sparkle to the finished project.

To view some of my completed glass fusion projects including fused glass jewellery you can visit my online store.

I will continue this post soon.

Until then...Good work comes from good thoughts.

One last word of advice for glass fusion techniques is... Keep your work clean and take care.