I have been fascinated recently with all things “holey” meaning using the glass in ways to create holes. I started with a tutorial for sand dollar plates (more on this in a future blog) and then morphed to using strips of glass next to each other in a single layer trying to create a “holey” look and then putting this on top of a platter.
Examples of Platters with Fused Glass Strips or Stringers
I later came across several posts on Fused Glass Fanatics in Facebook using stringers (instead of glass strips) to create an even more ethereal look and became hooked. Again I used this on some platters but then wondered what it would be like on a drop vase on the outside so I could easily see the effect and I loved it.
Drop Vase with Glass Stringers
Here are the steps for both the glass strips and stringers:
1) For glass strips I cut 1/4” wide strips same as you would do for a strip plate where you put the strips on edge. If you break one, don’t worry, just put it together in the kiln. It will separate when fired but since you want holes this only adds to it. For stringers, just cut them all the length you want and it is okay to mix 1mm and 2mm stringers.
2) Lay them all next to each other in the kiln and fire. I will have to say that the lay-up of the stringers in a circle took me an inordinate amount of time, more than expected.
Lay-up of Glass Strips in Kiln before Firing
Lay-up of Stringers in Kiln before Firing
Here is my schedule:
Ramp Temperature Hold Time
500 1050 F 1 hr
500 1455 F 10 minutes
AFAP 900 F 1 hr
100 700 F 10 minutes
3) After firing, clean your fused piece very carefully to remove any residual kiln wash or fiber paper.
4) When adding to a plate or coaster, I found I got less distortion of the edges of the plate from 3 layers if I first fused the two full sheets together. After making sure I had straight edges, I placed the fired “holey” strips on that plate either doing a tack fuse or full fuse and the edges stayed straight.
5) Often these strip plates look better with a matte finish, so I then sandblast the whole thing and slump it which is the perfect temperature to keep the matte finish. Sandblasting if often necessary anyway because I didn’t get off all the kiln wash before the second fire and I needed to fix the result. So I usually sandblast even if I want a glossy finish.
For the drop vase I wanted to use excess pieces of stringers from the plates as I had lots of smaller pieces which seemed perfect for a 6” circle. After I had fused the strips in a circle, I then fused it onto a layer of black and clear glass, and last I flipped and fused some random excess pieces of stringers to the other side so both sides of the vase were interesting.
After firing on Black Base before Dropping
One last comment is that I tested the initial stringer fusing both on kiln wash and thin fire paper to see which was better. As far as the appearance after firing and getting a nice separation, you can see in the picture below for the twop two pieces that it did not matter. However, for clean up afterwards and making sure the resulting glass was clean before adding to a plate, the thin fire won this test as it is much easier to clean and perhaps not always require sandblasting.
No Visible Difference between using Kiln Wash and Thin Fire
Idle Creativity 