An Introduction to Making Fused Glass
With this method you can create all kind of decorative items such as home accessories or jewelry. This process is actually very complex and it requires glass fusing tools, supplies and a lot of patience. It is very easy to learn some basic things but it is extremely complicated and it can take years to learn everything about this process.Fused Glass 101
The first thing you need to know is how to select the adequate type of glass. When heated, glass expands and contracts. When creating fused glass, it is very important to use glass that has the same Coefficient of Expansion. This means that the glass pieces will expand and contract at the same rate. Fused glass manufacturers use many glass pieces and cutting tools to produce a fused glass piece for a completed design.
Then, the manufacturer will put the glass pieces together to obtain a beautiful design. Creativity plays a very important part at this stage. Some artist may keep their objects simple, using just a few glass layers and some basic geometric shapes while others use many glass layers and a lot of colors in order to create really complex designs.
After the piece is completed, the next step is to heat it in a kiln. This process requires some skills and originality. The finished design will be affected by the temperature used and the time it spends inside the kiln. A firing can take a few hours depending on the effect you want to obtain. There are artist that fuse their design with a hand torch because, this way they have more control over the final aspect of their design.
The last step is called annealing and it involves cooling down the fired glass to the room temperature. This is a slow procedure that can"t be accelerated because if the glass is not correctly annealed it can break unexpectedly.
During the past few years fused glass art has got very popular thanks to the beauty of the colors that can be achieved using this method.