dichroic glass
Tips and Techniques: More about Using Dichroic Glass
Techniques for working 104 COE dichroic glass that is on sale starting July 16,2010, a great chance to try this beautiful sparkly glass. Read more
Tips and Techniques: Using Dichroic on a Hot Head Torch
Making dichroic beads on a Hot Head torch can give you a whole other look because you can work the dichroic crystals up and they will not burn. Read more
Did You Know Effetre / Moretti Makes Sheet Glass?
Frantz Art Glass & Supply carries a large selection of 104 C.O.E. sheet glass. This glass is made from the same glass as the rods created by Effetre / Moretti. To me this is a huge area of possibilities for letting your creative energies run wild.
When I started using Effetre glass rods 27 years ago, the company was still call Moretti and they had never made sheet glass at their factory because there was no interest in artist sheet glass in Italy. This fact didn’t stop me from laying a bunch of rods together and fusing them into a sheet. This method produces a 3/8 inch thick sheet, but the colors were so wonderful that I didn’t care. Effetre has only produced sheet glass for the last 15 years, but what a difference the thinner sheets make when you are fusing a multi layered project.
Effetre sheet glass ranges from 2 mm to 4 mm in thickness. The 2 mm sheets are specifically made in black and clear, to be used for creating dichroic colors. The dichroic sheets are made thin to make it easier to use a dichroic strip, which are manufactured in-house by Frantz Art Glass. The dichroic strips are annealed to make the strips easier to place in and out of the torch flame without shocking and it also makes it easier to see which side the dichroic coating is on.
Out of the 45 colors of sheet glass made by Effetre, there are 4 colors that have goldstone running through the base colors
Strips of a dichroic color call "Corksrew".
One of my favorite things to do using sheet glass is to combine lampworked elements with sheet glass and tack-fuse them together with kiln heat. There is a slight learning curve to this technique, but it can yield some amazing results.
Frantz Art Glass has around 45 different colors of Effetre sheet glass and this does not include the 25 different dichroic colors and patterns that are available in ¼”, ½” and 1 inch wide strips. All the different sheet glass colors can be purchased in ¼, ½ or full sheets, depending on what you need.
Fused heart pin made with murrini melted into a sheet of clear glass.
Example of a lampworked squid that was tack fused onto a piece of blue sheet glass.
Need More Information and Inspiration?
When you click on the Web Gallery, a web page appears that shows links for the three different sections of the web gallery that are Focal Beads, Spacer Beads and Strands. Click on one of the choices and you will be taken to a page of thumb (small images) to pick from. When you click on a thumb image, a large image will appear with a list of the different glass colors that were used in that bead and the glass colors are linked to the Frantz Art Glass web page for easy purchase, plus pertinent information on how the bead was made. Read more
CiM Messy Color Blue Rods for Lampworkers
Happy New Year everyone!!! There are two new colors from CiM that just arrived this week and they are both new blues. One is “Zachary” 511589 and the other is called “Great Bluedini” 511590.
Zachary is what some people call baby blue, but it can also be called a very pale periwinkle. When you compare regular Periwinkle with Zachary, Zachary is 50% lighter than Periwinkle. I like the results I got by pairing Zachary with Cranberry Pink (used in the form of a rose cane), with a little goldstone ribbon thrown in the mix for some flash.
The Great Bluedini kind of looks like a transparent version of Mermaid and could be describe as a rich dense blue-green. In fact when you pair Great Bluedini with Mermaid, it makes both colors pop. I made a white heart out of Great Bluedini and decorated it with roses out of Cranberry Pink and some goldstone ribbon, with good results.
To see how Great Bluedini worked as a core color, I made a dichroic covered heart pendant with a core of Great Bluedini and I really like how it came out. I tried several more beads out of Zachary and Great Bluedini to show how these colors look in different arrangements and you can view them below.
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- Dichroic heart pendant with a core of Great Bluedini.
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- White heart bead encased in Great Bluedini decorated with roses and goldstone.
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- Flowers made of Great Bluedini, Pulsar and Poison Apple leaf.
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- Tabular bead made of Zachary decorated with goldstone ribbon and rose cane.
Tips and Techniques: Dichroic on Copper
I am a die hard dichroic fan, but I had not paid much attention to the CBS Dichroic on Copper Sheet because at first I couldn’t get my head around it. When I first saw some dichroic on copper sheet, it was Silver and it just didn’t catch my attention. Recently I was shown a dichroic on copper sheet that was a pattern called “Mixture” that has soft blues and pinks in it as well as silver and I said to myself – WOW, this stuff is really neat looking. I had a sheet that had been slightly broken up and the bag was full of cool looking dichroic bit-shards. The dichroic shards really got me motivated to make some beads with it and I really like the results.
Dichroic on copper sheet with loose bit-shards.
Loose dichroic bit-shards on graphite pad.
You have to be careful when you open the bag of Dichroic on Copper and have a sheet of paper under the bag to catch any shards that might flake off. I put the dichroic shards that I had on a graphite pad that I use for rolling up shards on to beads and it works really well.
The dichroic on copper sheet was designed to provide dichroic that can be put on any glass, so you don’t have the problem of matching the glass you are using with what ever the dichroic is coated on. Another great thing about the dichroic on copper is the fact that the dichroic layer on the copper is 3 times thicker than any other way that dichroic is normally applied. The thicker coating makes the dichroic much more durable and less likely to burn to that gray scum that everyone hates.
Bead made with dichroic shards from copper sheet.
The copper sheets also allow the artist to cut patterns or strips of dichroic in the sheet and roll the dichroic right up off the copper onto a hot bead or other lampworked form.
CBS (Coatings by Sandberg) has a good instructional video posted on the web that is good to watch and it provides some great working points that help in using this product. If you have never seen dichroic on copper used, I recommend watching this short educational video on the Sandberg website.
In case you are wondering what to do with the sheet of copper once you have used all the dichroic, the copper is of a thickness and quality that it can be used to apply cut out patterns of copper on to a bead. I have seen some stunning examples of this technique and highly recommend giving it a try.
Dichroic shards on bead made with CiM "Electric Avenue and Gunmetal.
