The Brilliance and Beauty of Fused or Dichroic Glass Jewelry
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by: Guest
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Wearable glass art is becoming one of the most popular fashion accessories today, with people surfing for these in the internet or looking for samples in galleries, malls and the like. ‘Wearable’ glass is actually fused glass – technically known as dichroic glass - which is glass to which various oxides or quartz is ‘melded’ onto the surface in varying layers or thickness to produce a multi-colored effect.
Dichroic glass is a NASA invention, originally produced for use in space suits and later used by various industries such as optical enterprises (dichroic lenses are used by various camcorders), scientific measuring instruments (especially those using lasers for measurement), and others.
The art community soon discovered dichroic glass and its use by glass artists began to grow. Part of its popularity comes from the amazing sheen or patina of fused glass, combined with the luminous depth and range of colors that can be created as well as the various textures that can be produced.
Making Fused Glass
Creating dichroic glass is a demanding, rigorously defined process involving vacuum chambers, electron guns and various oxides such as titanium, magnesium and silicon that are bonded to hot glass using a technology known as thin-film physics.
The glass is first cut into the planned pieces (e.g. a pendant, earrings, beads and so on). They are then placed in a vacuum chamber with the appropriate oxides. Pressure within the chamber is increased and so that both oxide and glass get heated. Once the hot glass is ready, an electron gun is used to vaporize the oxides which then bond to the glass.
Once this is accomplished (the process of vaporizing oxides being repeated if needed), air is allowed back into the chamber to cool it down, and the glass pieces are removed, cleaned and prepared for fashioning into ‘wearable glass art’ or jewelry.
Turning Fused Glass into Accessories
Turning fused glass into jewelry is another process in itself which relies heavily on the creativity of the artist or designer. The raw dichroic glass can be polished or shaped using abrasive tools, or wrapped in silver or other metal threads or the ‘hardware’ which makes the piece wearable. The dichroic glass piece can even be returned to the kiln for further reworking in a process called ‘fire-polishing.’
The findings – or the metal sections needed to turn the glass pieces into wearable jewelry – have to work with the dichroic glass piece or pieces to combine beauty, elegance, durability, and hypoallergenic qualities so that safe, comfortable use of the finished dichroic glass jewelry can be assured. Gold, silver and anodized niobium are some of the materials preferred by artists as findings for their pieces.
The growing popularity of dichroic glass for fashion accessories and other uses (as home décor, for example) have led many people into the field – either as makers of fused glass which are then sold ‘unfinished’ (in a sense) for others to turn into jewelry or other accessories. Others have used their background in jewelry design and manufacture to combine fused glass and precious or semi-precious stones to create bracelets, earrings, pendants and other wearable pieces that combine the rainbow colors of dichroic glass with the brilliance of mined stones.
Related: The Brilliance and Beauty of Fused or Dichroic Glass Jewelry
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