Stretching dichroic glass on fused stones

Hi, I have found your site a while ago and am on your e-mail list
(thank goodness) for postings. It has been wonderful. I do have a
slight problem though. I had been using my daughters great computer
and she has brought it back to school with her. I am now back to my
old thing that basically only gets e-mail - it takes forever to get
on the web and most times I do not have success. Would you mind
posting my question onto the site since I cannot. I am glad that I
will be able to get responses from my e-mail though. Thanks in
advance. L

I am a glass fuser specializing in dichroic glass. I had been
having some success trying to get a very sheer appearance to some of
my glass - I fused onto a dark glass background. Depending on what
sheet I use it sometimes works , but many times I end up with the
glass not being transparent and looking exactly the same as when I
placed it on the other pieces. I read an article recently about
using a torch to stretch the dichroic glass over already fused stones
in order to achieve a very vieled look to that piece of glass. ( I
tried contacting the author had no success). As I do set my work in
silver I used an acetyline torch and was wondering if I could try it
with that. I am somewhat afraid though of the glass shattering on me
when I torch it ( either the stone or the glass piece). I am not
sure how I would attempt this. Is this the only way to achieve this
type of result? Any suggestions? Thanks, Elle

Elle, I teach glass fusing as one of the techniques in my jewelry
program and my students in their ‘student ways’ discovered that over
firing would stretch the dichroic especially the opaque types. You
can’t control how it stretches,but you you might want to try.They
weren’t paying close attention to the kiln and I think they were a
couple of hundred degrees over the 1500. Sue

Elle, what do you mean when you refer to “fused stones”? Perhaps in
the article the stones were simply being used as a form to stretch the
glass over. I don’t think you would have much luck actually fusing
glass to stones. Even if you were able to heat the glass very slowly
with the torch so as not to thermal shock it, you would still have to
anneal the piece on the cool-down. But the bigger problem would be
compatability between the glass and the stone. The COE’s would be so
different that you would have cracks, if not right away then surely at
some point.

Rene Roberts