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Kiln formed glass art

Kiln formed glass art, also referred to as fused and slumped glass starts out as flat sheets of glass that have an equal expansion coefficient know as COE.
This allows these same COE glasses to be combined by fusing together in a kiln without producing stresses in the glass which would otherwise cause cracks.

The glass is cut to size and to various designs and placed in a kiln where it is control fired to a certain temperature. A computer type controller is used with several steps in the firing process.

The glass is either left flat as is the case with most of the jewellery or slumped into or over a mould in a further firing in the kiln which produces it’s shape.

Most of my jewellery uses dichroic glass which has a special coating of crystal and metal oxide that gives the glass it’s unique colour characteristics. The material used is the same for all colours.  It is purely the thickness of the coating that determines the colour.  The colour shifts depending on angle of view and has a totally different transparent colour to reflective colour. There are very few manufacturers of dichroic glass and it is an expensive production process.  It therefore costs much more per square metre than normal fusing glass. 
It is truly amazing.

Making Dichroic Glass Cuff Bracelets