Remember that fused glass mesh melt project? So what is the final design? Will it stay in one piece or be sliced up into strips? The decision has been made. In this, the first part of this project, I’ll talk about the design and start making the piece.
The video tutorial includes the design, materials, and equipment information, the full fuse to make the piece, the slump, and the final review.
Project Information
In the YouTube video, you will find links to related videos, a chapter list with time stamps, and links to more resources.
Just as a reminder, the glass I use is Bullseye 90 COE. On the shelf for full fusing, I use Thinfire fiber paper. When fire polishing pieces on my shelf, and when slumping in moulds, I spray with boron nitride mould release.
This video is the first part of a project to use that fused glass pattern bar in a final piece. I talk about the design and make a start of creating the piece. Spoiler alert, watch the video first if you don’t want the design to be revealed just yet.
The final piece is going to be a platter, using slices of the pattern bar. I did decide to slice it up. A drop vase was on the cards, but my inexperience with these influenced the final decision in a big way.
When cutting the bar up I decided to make the slices 6 mm thick. Mainly because I felt that thin slices may dilute the colour too much.
The slicing was done on my ring saw, using the straight edge as a guide. The slices were a little wider to allow for cleaning them up to size later. You will have noticed while cutting I was trimming the end of the bar after each slice. This is because the cut at the end left a little protruding piece. This stopped the bar from sitting flat against the straight edge, so I had to grind it off first.
I did get only 9 slices, an odd number, and not enough for what I had in mind. So a rethink of the design was needed.
A goal with the final design was to make something that seemed a little off-center that set the viewer a little uneasy. So I purposefully made it a little weighted to one side. I’m not sure if this has been achieved, so let me know what you think in the video comments.
In the next part, I’ll finish all the cutting and assembly, then fuse and slump into the final piece.
If you have any questions please ask in the comments section on YouTube.