One of the most time consuming and challenging fused glass techniques I make are fused glass drop vases. There are several steps involved. The first thing you have to do is to make a glass slab so to speak. It needs to be kind of thick. Then you put it over a mold that has a hole – see pictures of the molds below. Then you put it in the kiln and let the glass drop through the hole, the bottom two drops before I cut off the rim.
Then you have to cut the rim off the piece this is pretty challenging, basically I lose half or end up cutting the vases smaller than I wanted. You can see the ones below had some issues. Some dropped too much, but I think they are so cool. Except when they drop almost all the way through like the bottom two pictures.
When I get to this point the real work begins. I use my flat lap to grind the rim and add a flat bottom. Even at this point they can break. As you can see, I broke a few of them – last two. You have to hold on pretty tight and when it hit’s the flat lap it can break. I’ll try to cut off a bit more with my saw.
After using the flat lap, I use diamond pads, to smooth the edges – inside and out. Then sometimes I sandblast them – here are 2 I sandblasted. The black one is sandblasted just on the outside. The one on the right is sandblasted on the inside and outside.
Sometimes I put the bottom flat spot so it sits at an angle and sometimes I don’t put a flat bottom and just have them sit in a cradle so to speak. The one in the cradle is sandblast inside and out.
So I thought I’d try to fire polish a couple of drops verses spending all the time coldworking them. It did not turn out well. The blue smushed, but I kind of like it. The red flattened almost completely. I’m going to cut it into pendants.
Because they take so much effort it’s taken me awhile (some I’ve waited years to finish), but I finally finished several of them. I think they turned out great. I hope you like my beautiful drop vases. Which one is your favorite?
If you would like to see more of my fused glass work, please refer to my website Elegant Fused Glass by Karen. If you get a chance, check out all my site and my Elegant Fused Glass by Karen YouTube. If you’d like to take a class please check out the information on my site about my classes. If you would like to stay abreast of what I’m up-to check out our newsletter. It is published the last day of each month.
Karen
