In a previous post, Float Glass Products, I raved about the exciting new stuff I had bought that is COE82, making it compatible with float. Whilst the colors of float glass are disappointing (compared to the vibrancy of Bullseye glass) I had high hopes that these products would help me to make new, innovative glass designs at a fraction of the cost of COE90 glass. Here's what has happened so far...
Clear bubble powder: I was hoping for large, blistering bubbles such as the ones I get in my sushi dishes but the bubbles came out more like a rash. Unperturbed, I made another tile with lots more bubble powder (see below). If you look carefully you wlil see that the larger bubbles have stress fractures in them.
Below: clear bubble powder experiments with other bubble powders. Curious! The one of the left is clear and turquoise bubble powder. The clear powder appears to have stripped the turquoise of any color, leaving it a dirty gray. The one on the right is clear bubble powder mixed with red bubble powder. It has also stripped the red color from the bubbles. I'm blaming the clear powder but, as I am still experimenting with this, I could be wrong.
Below: bubble powder stud earrings with clear and pink bubble powder. You can see a faint sheen of pink around the bubbles. They do look unusual in the fact that the bubbles look as if the glass is under water but, as I am an "in-yer-face" with color kind of gal, I will be working on this to make it more colorful.
Transparent frit: because colored float is slightly disappointing I was expecting the frit to be a bit wishy washy. Instead, I am quite pleased with the results. From left to right: First one is frit mixed with clear bubble powder. again, it's turned a horrible grayish color, like burnt ash. Second one is amber, orange and red frit between two pieces of float glass. It looks quite good close up because it has tiny air bubbles trapped inside. Third and fourth ones are both frit placed between and on top of the glass. The image doesn't show it clearly but these pieces have a lot more depth and color to them.
Below: amber, orange and red frit earrings. The transparency makes them look almost liquid. I'm quite pleased with these and they are available for sale in my Dawanda shop.
Silver and gold glass sheet: this glass has a coating of gold or silver and it has lots of pre-made scratches that make a pattern on the glass. (It would be good to be able to buy it as a solid metallic color too). Here's what I did with it.
Below: various glass nuggets fused with gold and silver coated glass. The ones on the left have been fused with a cap of clear glass. The gold and silver coating has burned out and the glass cap has devitrified. Not good! The ones on the right have been fused with the gold ands silver coated glass on top of the clear glass. Although it looks much better I didn't get the shrinkage in the kiln that I was expecting so I have since cut the glass shapes to a smaller size. 
Hearts of Glass. These glass hearts have been hand cut and fused by me, Glassprimitif. They are made from float glass (coe82) with a coating of gold or silver glass. Each one measures 1.5" (3cm) and are available for sale at Glassprimitif on Etsy.
Whoo-hoo! Asianicandy has one of my sushi dishes in her store
I'm very proud of this dish as it is vanilla glass with deep orange strips fused into a plaid design with green and yellow frit in each square. Check out http://asianicandystore.com for more sushi inspired items.
This is Bullseye glass and it's my favorite. The Bullseye factory is in Portland, Oregon www.bullseye.com which is why it is more expensive than in the US. Must be the air miles! But the colours are lovely, it is easy to cut and grind and doesn't lose its intensity when fused. I'm a big fan.So these are the colours I am going to use in my glass dish. I have cut a square of 5" in thick clear glass, a slightly smaller square of thin vanilla opal and now I am going to cut the heart shapes in red, orange, amber
and lime green thin transparent glass. I draw round the paper heart template with a permanent marker pen and cut the hearts with a Toyo cutter. I try to be as economical with the glass as possible, saving small fragments to use as frit and larger pieces for other projects.
Here is the glass dish prior to grinding. I have a small Glastar diamond grinder which I bought from Tempsford Glass about four years ago. It gets a lot of punishment but its still going strong. I like to use a fine grinding head for Bullseye and change to a coarse grinding head for float and very thick glass. Once the glass has been smoothed I wash it in hot soapy water, rinse it in vinegar and water then dry it very carefully.
The first glass I began fusing was float scrap that I could get free from work. I would fuse washers, copper wire, copper sheet, leaves and razor blades between the float. I still have these samples in a box along with all the pieces that went wrong. (It's a big box). When I got more familiar with glass fusing I looked around for a coloured glass that met my requirements and settled on Bullseye. The colours are so rich and vibrant. Here's an example of a few pieces of my Bullseye glass stash. My favourite colours are red (of course), vanilla, lime green, orange, amber, black and turquoise. Bullseye isn't the cheapest glass and all ambers, oranges and reds are the most expensive because of the gold content. So I have been looking around for a more competitive supplier. I have to weigh up my fuel costs against postage costs and it is definitely more cost effective to order glass by post than to travel to the warehouse I usually go to. The most competitive UK Bullseye supplier has to be www.warm-glass.co.uk where I already buy my dichroic glass. The new site is easy to navigate and they stock such a huge range of Bullseye colours that I am reeling from the choice. I'm going to have to make a purchase soon as I want to make dishes in chocolate and blue opal glass. I can even save glass I like in my Wish List so that I can go away and think about it before I commit to buy. If anyone wants to buy me a present from Warm-glass I would like the book "Contemporary Warm Glass" by Brad Walker. Thanks!
Glass Mosaic Sushi Dish - measures 4 1/2" square. Made from Bullseye glass in red, black, orange and amber placed onto vanilla. All glass cut, fused and polished at the Glassprimitif studio. Email me for further details.
