Why use kiln wash when firing glass!

A few weeks ago I was very rushed in the studio. I had orders to fulfil and commissions to design and make.

In my hast, I grabbed a kiln tile to fire some long dichroic glass cabochons and thought the tile had already had kiln wash applied. 

Well, unfortunately, it was a brand new one and although it felt like there was wash on it. It was just the newness of the tile.

As you can see from the outcome, glass fired on un-kiln washed tiles is not a good thing.

That's a very expensive lesson, double check the tile before assuming anything. Unless you want to waste loads of dichroic glass, time and a brand new kiln tile.

Luckily I had more glass and kiln tiles and all the jobs were completed on time and the customers were happy.

If you would like to see my designs that are for sale, please visit my website at 

www.stevesmithjewellery.co.uk

Thanks for stopping by and having a read, Steve :-)

A short story! The Making of Dichroic Glass Hair Barrettes.

OK!

Here goes.......

A short story of how I make Dichroic Glass Hair Barrettes.

First things first, pick a selection of different coloured dichroic glass sheets and cut into 5/16" x 2"3/8" pieces. Then cut matching Tekta glass to make the pieces thick enough for the fusing process.

Set all the pieces out on a kiln washed firing tile. Yes, nicely regimented and possibly a bit OCD at this point.

Then, carefully place in the cool kiln, making sure no pieces of glass has slipped. This final check of the unfused glass is is very important as once the temperature starts rising in the kiln, it's a bit late to be sticking your hands in to adjust something you have just spotted. Trust me, I know from experience LOL. As you can see from the first picture of the closed kiln, it was a warm day as the ambient temperature was 17 degree centigrade.

These two pictures show the kiln at full fusing temperature. After the holding time the door was opened very slightly to crash cool the glass to about 370 degrees centigrade. Then closed again to anneal for about 20 minutes. The door was then opened again, very slightly as I did not want any temperature shock to shatter the glass and left to cool to room temperature.

Once the kiln had cooled. The glass could be seen in all it's sparkling glory.

Now!

These long thin dichroic glass cabochon are to be glued onto these convex hair clips.

And what you see in the kiln are very flat cabochons.

  How to bend glass very simply.

I have a small square of copper, about 4" square which I curve to the same curvature as the hair clips. 

Not sure if it's necessary but I then apply 5 coats of kiln wash, drying each coat before then next one is applied. I added this kiln wash as I really don't want these cabochon stuck to anything.

A very strong coffee was introduced at this point to steady my hands. With steady hands I laid the flat cabochons on the former and placed them in the kiln for the slumping process.

Out of the kiln they came slumped nicely into the convex shape that I needed for these hair barrettes.

Whilst I was waiting for the kiln to finish I managed to glue a few pairs of Bobbin Hair clips as well. I know what you thinking, a man multi-tasking. 

What can I say, I'm a new man. LOL 

And here you are. Slumped cabochons glued onto the hair clips with E6000 glue and all lined up drying. I have to wait about 48 hours for this glue to set fully so these will be on display cards and ready for selling in a few days

If you would like to see other designs then click on my website link.

www.stevesmithjewellery.co.uk

The very latest designs are usually place of Facebook first as this is the quickest.

Facebook page.

Thanks for taking time out to read my latest blog post and hope you visit again.

Steve :o)

The making of Dichroic glass stud earrings an ideal unique brides maids gift.

OK. Here is the way I make batches of Dichroic Glass Stud Earrings. 

As you can see, I create quite a few in one firing. Well that's the most efficient way to make these. It involves about two days of cutting glass then firing then cleaning the backs of them and finally gluing the very small cabochons onto 925 solid silver post and attaching them in pairs to display cards.

That's the basics anyway.

Here you go. A bit of a pictorial for you to have a look through.

After cutting dichroic glass into about 1/4" strips using my own designed straight cutter. I then use a glass mosaic cutter to chop these up into 1/4" squares. This take ages when making this many.

Here you can see the selection cut and place on the cutting surface, I don't know if you know but Dichroic glass reflects light at different wavelengths at different angles. This, I have tried to show in the second picture.  See how the colour has changed, this happens all the time with this type of glass.

After cutting all these, I think it was about 270 in total. The next task was to cut the top glass (Tekta), sometimes used as a base glass. Again, about 1/4" strips were cut using the straight line cutting tool as above.

I tried to be a bit arty farty with these pictures, As clear glass is quite boring compared to dichroic glass.

Then I started playing with my new camera. With all the top glass cut into 1/4" squares, I piled them up on a piece of pale blue glass. Stuck a light under this and clicked away. 

Here is a couple that turned out quite well.

The next task was to set them all out on the kiln tiles. I usually only put two tiles in the kiln at one time but some some strange reason I decided to put three tiles stacked one on top of the other. 

 To separate tiles a simple tri-ped foot sits in between each tile making sure the points on these are not too close to any glass. Because the glass will stick to it like glue and ruin both the stand and the glass.

 And here you are. All three kiln tiles laden with very small pieces of glass. Ready for the firing. Ramp to 805 degrees C and hold for a few minutes. Cool to about 400 degree C and then anneal.

Once cooled to about 100 degrees C, the shelves were removed and allowed to cool to room temperature.

With this many cab fired at one time. I had expected that some would not fire correctly and I was right. Out of all these I lost about a dozen but these can be re fired and still used at a later date.

There was a few extra steps that have not included 

but I can't tell you all the secrets of a Alchemist, now can I!

After gluing the silver posts on and leaving to set (min 48 Hours) the earrings were paired up and placed onto there very own display cards ready for listed and showing at street fairs, craft fair, website and Facebook.
Here are just a few, take a look and see what you think.

Hope I haven't bored you with this long blog but it was one that I had been meaning to do for ages but not got around to it.

If you like any of these unique Dichroic Glass Stud Earrings please contact me via email at stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

They are £6 per pair plus a £2 p&p charge.

Thanks for stopping by and getting all the way to the end of this post and call back again sometime to read more about my life as a kiln fired glass jewellery maker.

Steve

My Do's and dont's on How to make very small Dichroic glass cabochons for Stud Earrings

Here is my "how to" post on make very small Dichroic Glass Stud Earrings.

First things first, the reason:

I do quite a few craft fairs and we have a studio open five days a week and I have had parents ask if I can make very small stud earrings so there kids can wear them at school. It didn't take me long to have a go and this is my short story.

First, I cut long thin strips of dichroic glass on my home made glass cutting device. These are about 1/8" wide by about 4" long. This can be tricky and breaking glass so narrow is quite hard sometimes. But I carry on and cut a few of the strips from different dichroic sheets.

My home made glass cutting tool

The next task was to use this great tool I bought this year. It's a mosaic nibbler. It makes life so much easier :o) 

Mosaic Nibbler

I must mention the tile that the glass is placed on to fire MUST be coated with about five layers of kiln wash. If you don't do this the glass will stick to the tile and either the cabochon will break when removed or the tile will get damaged when removed. Either way not a good idea. So, don't cut corners and kiln wash the tile.

Cut dichroic glass ready for firing.

The tile is then placed in the kiln and temperature's are set for rampeing, holder and annealing.

Glass being fired, this is about 770 degrees C

Glass being fired, this is at full fusing temperature of 804 degrees C

Once the glass has fused and then annealed. It's left to reach room temperature. Here are the small cabochons once cooled and removed from the kiln.

Cooled cabochons straight from the kiln.

I had bought special solid silver stud earring posts for these stud earrings and set about gluing them on. It took ages and the only way to keep them upright was to place them in a bed of sand until dry.

Silver posts glued and drying in a bed of sand

Unfortunately, due to my stupid old brain. I had ordered the wrong earring post. The cabochons were just too big for these so after a few profanities I ordered slightly bigger posts and replaced these small ones for the bigger ones.

Leaving these to dry for at least 48 hours. I then presented them on my personalised backing card and here are the finished small stud earrings.

And that's about it, well apart from finding buyers and making more!

I love it when a plan comes together :o)

If you like to see more of my creations, click on the shop link at the top of this blog or click the Facebook link at the top of the blog. You will find jewellery ranging from cuff links to USB pendants. My stock is always changing to if you like my work why not add this page to your favourite list.