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Here's an interesting video I found on eHow by Cheryl Syminink of C-Glass Studio on the entire process of making a fused dichroic glass pendant. The video comes in 17 parts and yes, it is the WHOLE process, right from cutting the glass to fusing and finally turning it into a pendant. Go check it out!
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You should realize by now that you do not necessarily need a proper kiln to fuse glass because you have the microwave kiln. Even so, it nevertheless made me curious about the choice of one over the other which I then posed Uncle Ghee with this question.
Well, to him, the reason why he would choose a proper kiln over the microwave one is due to thw timing issue. Everything is programmed with a proper kiln so that you just throw evverything in, set the time and temperature and you can go and work on other stuffs. When you come back to it, everything's done just nice.
Unlike the microwave one where he is never too sure about the time and actually need to check on it all the time and even risk over firing it. What happens when you over fire the glass? Well, the glass won't get burnt. LOL.... :P
But.....this is what can happen.
What is amiss here? Why, the shape of course!
You'll notice here that the glas piece is groundnut shaped rather than squarish or rectangularish as it was initially intended to be.
But even then, it still looked fine to me. If I hadn't been told that it was actually over fired, I would have thought that it was the intended design. Like Uncle Ghee said, it still looks nice.
So, if you think about it, the red piece of glass that I did earlier on was actually kinda over fired too?
Isn't it? o_OAnyway, that aside, there is actually a difference firing between the two. Well, not a very significant difference anyway but this was what pointed out by Uncle Ghee.
Now, take a look at these two.
One was fired using the proper kiln and another using the microwave kiln. Can you tell which is which? The answer should be pretty obvious.
The one on the left is fired using a kiln and the one on the right, the microwave one.
So, you see, the one on the left has a more.... erm, how should I say it, straight edges? Whereas the one on the right has a more rounded edge.
I'm not sure if the shape and size will also affect the outcome since if you observed the two pieces above, you might come the realize that the one on the left is more rectangular in shape whereas the one on the right more squarish?
Anyway, that's just what I've been told la.
Ouh, and do you see that small piece of shiny blue foil like paper in the piece on the left?
Well, that piece was a dichroic glass piece. I've mentioned before what dichroic glass is and as compared to the ordinary glass, there is no doubt that dichroic glass is prettier but then, it also comes at a higher cost. I was told that it costs up to 5 times the price of normal glass! @_@
And now, a side view of that piece of fused glass.
This piece is actually made up of three pieces of glass, with the dichroic piece being at the top, followed by a transluscent blue and opaque blue as its base. A closer inspection will also shows that despite the three layers of glass, the final fuse works out to be only about the thickness of 2 layers of glass or approximately 6mm!
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