What to do with Scrap Glass

I hate to admit it, but I have lots of failed projects.  So, I made the decision that 2024 was the year to do something with them.

Below is a picture of a dichroic piece I didn’t like, so I squashed it.

Squashed dichroic glass

I decided I would take this piece and take my cutoffs from other dichroic pieces to make a new piece.

Cutoffs from dichroic pieces

I place these cutoff pieces onto my squashed piece, trying not to put the same color dichroic next to each other. I adhered the pieces with clear aloe gel.

I find that clear aloe gel does not dry fast, so I have plenty of time to adjust until I have what I want.

Next, I cover with a fine layer of clear powdered and fired in my kiln.  Here is what the piece looked like when it was finished.

New dichroic piece

I think I will be taking this piece and cutting into circles with a hole saw drill bit.

Running Pliers fixes

So I am always looking for fused glass information on the internet. I have joined many Facebook groups.

Somewhere I remembered that if the plastic on your running pliers needed replaced, there were options besides replacing the plastic.

One such suggestion was just putting multiple layers of duct tape them. Of course, today as I was working I noticed how bad these plastic covers were on my pair. So I pulled out the duct tape and gave it a try.

Not a very good job, I know, but it worked!

Temu Silicone Molds

The picture below shows the molds I bought on Temu

Rose silicone molds

Here is what the rises look like after firing

Beautiful detail. The white ones which is actually clear could have been kiln fired for less time but still good detail.

TEMU for fusing?

Yes, yes and yes! I buy silicone molds and stencils for my fused glass along with tools. Usually I buy from a large online retailer (can you guess who?). Well I had to buy sets all together and some just cannot be used for fusing.

So I am now buying single silicone molds from Temu. And the best part is you have 30 days for price adjustments so you save more than you think.

I am an affiliate of Temu so please use this code to start saving apk19127. Just enter it into the search bar.

Use for Used Kiln Wash

I use the wet method for taking my kiln wash off my shelves when needed. This is done by spraying with water before scraping so as to not have so much floating in the air. I still use my respirator. My opinion you cannot over do safety. This I have started saving thinking that I could find a use for it instead of just throwing it away.

After wet scraping my kiln shows I collected it into a cup or bowl and then I let it dry. I have tried using this as a separator on my shelves on top of my kiln washed shelves to help with opals not sticking to the shelf. I have had mixed results.

This week I decided I wanted to bend some stringers and I didn’t want to do it in a candle flame so I decided that I would sprinkle mounds of my used kiln wash in places and see if that would help me bend the stringers.

Stringers after tack fire with kiln wash

Stringers laying on top of mounds of kiln wash before firing

Success! After another firing using the used kiln wash, I will scoop it back into a container for later use. I will be wearing my respirator so as not to get any into my lungs.

Bubbles Not The Good Kind Part II

So the super bubble squeeze for the champaign bubbles did not work. I, personally think, that they add interest to the piece, and was just trying to see if it would work.

I did smash a glass dish that was chipped. Love to smash glass and have been wanting to try different types of glass to see how it would fire in the kiln. I also had some attractive stained glass and thought I would fire a couple small pieces to make some small dishes out of it and all got larger bubbles.

For the green glass above, I have already fired with the schedule to get rid of bubbles and it actually moved the bubbles closer to the surface, so I will try again. I actually think if I would have held the piece longer, it would have completely removed the bubble.

Bubbles Not The Good Kind

I was making some blanks out of light transparent glass and Tetka. Two of these came out with champagne bubbles. Not what I was looking for of course.

A fellow artist, Maria Lunger, who attends LWAGA (Lunch With A Glass Artist) said during one of these sessions that you could put this back into the kiln and using her schedule would remove those unwanted bubbles.

Will it work? Other artists in following sessions say they tried it and it worked. So I put these blanks in my small kiln. I will try to post the new pictures of how they come out tomorrow if the kiln finishes, as I started the kiln kind of late and it is a slow schedule. Fingers crossed.

Taking Pictures for my Shop

Getting ready for the holidays not only involves making ornaments but also taking pictures that show my ornaments correctly. Not an easy undertaking for me.

Recently I decided to look into the zoom meetings that happen every Saturday called Lunch with a Glass Artist. I found out that some of these had been taped and can be accessed for free on Vimeo. Just Google Lunch with a Glass Artist. There is also a Facebook page and if you look in the files they have a list of the episodes.

I started scrolling through the videos and found one on photographing glass. Well this peaked my interest.

I learned some techniques that have helped me quite a bit. I am still learning and trying to implement these photographic steps and it seems to be helping me.

If you have time and want to learn this or other interesting fused glass information I would highly recommend you take a look. Here is a link https://vimeo.com/channels/1627189/videos

Glass, Glass Glass

I fell in love with Glass at an early age. I am sure I wrote of this before on how my mother collected Glass elephants (only with the trunks up for good luck).

During my early 20’s I started doing stained glass. My favorite was wind chimes. Wind chimes not only looked good but also sounded so sweet.

Not many years later I live doing fused glass. I have two kilns and can’t wait to open the kilns after they have finished their firing.

My husband has always wanted to blow glass but has never done it. I have been watching TikTok videos such as this one https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRC5joTL/ and now I wonder when I will make the leap. Looks pretty amazing!

Have you ever considered doing g any type of glass work? If given a chance what type of glass work would you be interested in? Stained glass? Fused glass? Blown glass? Bead work? Other.

How To Save Your Fingers From Being Cut when Grinding.

With glass fusing, I haven’t had to use my grinder in the last few weeks. Today though I had numerous pieces I needed to grind. The very first piece had both my thumb and index finger cut and bleeding . My tip for saving your fingers is this, put masking tape on your thumb and fingers. I also grind all the edges of the piece very lightly with hardly no pushing to remove any sharp edges.