What is Fused Glass?

Working with fused glass is a wonderful, and sometimes tricky business. 

My pieces start out as flat sheets of glass, in varying sizes and thicknesses - a bit like a pane of glass in a window. 

To create these wearable pieces of art, I cut the glass, stack it, and fire it in the kiln, usually at a full fuse, which is around 815C/1499F. The longer I leave the glass at the maximum temperature, the more fused it will become. A full fuse and cool down cycle will typically take around 12 hours, at which point I can open the kiln and see what’s happened. It’s a bit like opening a present, it’s very exciting! Occasionally, something wonderfully unexpected can happen—equally sometimes you end up with a piece you’ve spent a long time on, but it just hasn’t turned out the way you wanted it to, and it gets thrown in the scrap container to be re-used.

Most of my pieces require only one or two firings to get them to the stage I’d like them at, but for more complicated, layered pieces or flattened pieces, 3 or more firings may be needed. Sometimes the pieces require cold working (grinding, polishing) in between firings.

A couple of interesting facts about glass:

• Glass is neither a liquid or a solid - it is, in fact, an 'amorphous solid', which is somewhere between those two states. 
• Glass always sticks to the ‘6mm Rule’. No matter how high or low I stack a piece, it always wants to be 6mm thick. Think of it like a pancake—it will always be the same thickness no matter how much batter you pour onto the pan. So if I want to make a thicker piece, then I need to 'dam' it - create a wall around it to keep it at the desired thickness. In reverse, if I want a piece thinner than 6mm I need to squash it. 

Enjoy browsing and let me know if you have any questions x