Making Glass bubbles from scrap

[Californiagirl]

I want to make some glass beads/bubbles or just little round pieces for future projects.  I cut some scrap of black and clear and did a full fuse.  The black ones are perfect but the clear ones didn’t draw up.  The edges rounded like other fused projects but they mainly kept their shape.  The only thing I can figure out is I used Tekta for these.  The pieces were small and they should have rounded out.  Will using plain clear glass make a difference?  Please help!

Sue

[Tosca]

Hi Sue

I have made this type of bead, I made heart shaped pendants later & put them on after.  If you want to add to something, please tack fuse them not as I did a full fuse which flattens them a bit.

I used pieces of opal coloured glass with dichroic on top so that they came out coloured.  I have a collection now, haven’t had reason to use more yet.  You can buy a dichroic that is green/pink, it is good to put over a colour.  On clear it wouldn’t be as good.  The colours I used were mauve, pink

aqua, clear med purple & clear cobalt blue (all Spectrum 96). Remember all glass must be of the same brand..  All of mine rounded nicely & they look good.  Make a square of each & place the

dichroic on top.  Hope you have fun with them. 

[Stephen Richard]

As you found, black absorbs heat faster than clear.  All you need is to heat higher or longer – not both – and you will see the “harder” glasses forming balls too.

Stephen Richard

blogs at: http://www.verrier-glass.blogspot.com/   and  http://www.glasstips.blogspot.com/

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