FOXY Fusions Blog

Making fused glass creations takes all kinds of different fusible glass.  Fusible glass is glass that has been pre-tested by the manufacturer for its COE (coefficient) and compatibility with other glasses. Fusible glass typically has a COE of 90 or 96. I use COE 90 glass for my designs because most of the dichroic glass out there is also COE 90.

I like to use Bullseye glass because of its predictable color palette across sheets of glass. Even with Bullseye, the glass sometimes changes color as they change the recipe (darn them!), but it is the most stable.

I use transparent glass, opalescent glass, iridescent glass, and dichroic glass.

Transparent glass is fun to play with because it is not completely solid…you can see other colors through it, and you can create new colors by overlapping layers of glass. That’s fun.  (See a sample)

Opalescent glass provides a strong background for the layers on top and therefore can create some very bold designs. (See a sample)

Iridescent glass is typically transparent glass that has a coating applied to it so that the surface has a rainbow-like coloring on its surface, similar to the effect of oil on water.  (See a sample) Notice in the sample that the left side of the image shows the real color of the glass (typically a transparent glass) and the right side shows the rainbow-like shimmer caused by the iridescent coating on the surface of the glass.

Dichroic glass (di-kro-ik) is a high-tech optical coating to fusible glass which selectively reflects certain wavelengths (colors) of light and allows the remaining wavelengths to transmit through. The word “dichroic” means two colors: transmitted color and reflected color. Most sheets of dichroic glass come in a rainbow pattern from cool colors (greens, teals, blues, purples) to warm colors (yellows, golds, bronzes, oranges).  The rainbow pattern is what makes matching dichroic glass so difficult when customers lose part of a matching set and want a replacement piece…it’s really challenging! (See sample)

Combining all of these glasses together can be very fun with unexpected and exciting results. Especially since the color of dichroic glass, and some other glasses (such as striker glass) changes during firing. It’s these challenges that keep my job interesting and my mind creative and inspired!

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