Moar adventures in glass fusing

[kaliha]

My friend Dave demanded that I make him something out of glass for his birthday, back when I got my kiln (he demanded in a nice way, btw). because I'm still working with simple shapes I decided to make him some cufflinks:
cros:
[x] can make them square, easy to cut out
[x] practical so that he'll actually wear them

cons:
[x] need to come up with something visually amusing to bring the lols. So I decided to make them pink and give them hearts (because Dave is very much in touch with his feminine side).

Some of you may remember for my last glass post the piece I made with silver foil which I've included in the picture above so that you can get an idea of how the foil will 'dissolve' when it is fused.

The foil is just normal kitchen foil, stamped out with a £1 paper punch from Tesco. The white blobs on the glass is the PVA glue which held it together.

The purple glass will colour shift to pink when it is fused and the red/orange glass will go to something between orange and green once it's fused.


All fused and going through the cooling down cycle (a posh name for "I opened and closed the kiln door repeatedly for ten minutes") I slightly over fused these as I got a bit engrossed in a game of Wordscraper on Facebook :/ so they rounded off a lot more than I actually wanted.


7 hours later. The kiln has cooled down to room temperature and I can take the glass out and get it cleaned up.


Thanks to my overfusing some of the dichroic coating has 'leaked' out of the side as the sides of the glass pulled upwards. *shakes fist* damn you Wordscraper!!

The bubbly bit used to be the silver foil.

(please be ignoring my manky finger and thumb)


So here's the finished pieces. The foil is mostly burnt away leaving a little ghostly image, which hasn't photographed particularly well, but looks much nicer in real life.


A close-up of one of the pink cabs.


A close-up of an orange/yellow cab(which, once I buy some more cufflink findings will become cufflinks for His Lordship, who was rather taken by it, hearts and all)


I got to play with epoxy resin for the first time today. I think it was a bit chemically as it made me rather lightheaded, even though I used a drop and was using it in front of a wide open kitchen window. (Not that impressed by the massive warning on the back of the box which stated that the State of California recognise that this resin contains a chemical which causes cancer! o_0)

The cufflink findings were slanted instead of straight so I'm not entirely sure I've stuck them on the right way round, but I'm sure Dave won't notice.

The metal tin is from Confetti, I bought a load back in the days when I was actually selling jewellery and still have a few left which are perfect for stuff like this.

And there you have it, one pair of cufflinks.

Comments

[chicklet73.livejournal.com]

Oh, these are fantastic! Congrats on the Cufflinks of Awesome!

[strangefrontier.livejournal.com]

I do love your Adventures in Glass Fusings posts, the results are so very pretty and get a bit of a magpie response from me - OOH SHINY! SPARKLY!

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

I do the same thing when I'm making them. I love the shiny!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hedgewytch_/]

Oooh prettty ;o)

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[paleologa.livejournal.com]

Wow - so pretty!!

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[redscharlach.livejournal.com]

Cool! They are so shiny and lovely!

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[doylefan22.livejournal.com]

Ooo...pretty.

Although I'm intrigued/bemused/confused at how the red one ends up green...

And surely that's not your thumbnail. It's ridiculously short.

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Although I'm intrigued/bemused/confused at how the red one ends up green...

It's got something to do with psychics and chemistry apparently, but when you heat the glass theirs a chemical reaction on the colour coating which shifts it along the colour spectrum.

And surely that's not your thumbnail. It's ridiculously short.
There was a terrible accident... woes

[11nine73.livejournal.com]

I want a kiln dammit!

Super shiny and fabulous.

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Well when I sell this one to upgrade I'll give you first dibs on buying this one for a bargain second-hand price.

ETA: Have you done any torch firing yet?

[l-i-z.livejournal.com]

They look awesome! :)

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

[sal101010.livejournal.com]

Very pretty!

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm digging out the old microwave kiln this week so there may be more glass posts forthcoming.

[glitteraddict89.livejournal.com]

You're so clever, I wish I could do something like this. I'd probably end up setting my hair on fire or something.

Pretties!

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Setting my hair on fire is the reason I don't work with naked flames. Usually set my nails on fire though.