I have been making dichroic cabs and pendants lately and would like to see more color blending. Not so much with the dichro, which I am using coated side down, but what I am trying to achieve is different colors of opal glass swirling around and blending in with the dichro. So as to not have the complete contrast of the base glass and the dichro. I have tried using frits and confetti and was just not happy with the results. I also have purchased a wispy white glass for my caps and that does seem to help some. But I would like to use multiple colors of the opal glass with my dichro but just can't seem to get it to blend well enough. Any suggestions?
Another problem I have been having is when using the fiber paper to make the holes for the pendants my glass always seems to pull in towards the center of the piece where the fiber paper is. I would like to see straight lines all the way around the pendant and not the pulling in. Any suggestions here?
Thanks in advance for any help you guys may have for me.
Maybe you can pre-fuse some slabs of multi colored high-fire glass, cut them up and add pieces into your work. As for the pulling in around the fiber paper problem, you may need to coldwork after the first firing and then firepolish.
the glass pulls in where you're casting the channel because it's thinner there than elsewhere. i like that indentation myself ... i put a little knot on each side of the pendant in that indented area, which makes the pendant on a cord look more finished.
if you want absolutely straight sides, no indentation, then jackie's right, you need to cold-work it and then firepolish.
as for the blending, i have no advice. i agree that the frits don't work well for this purpose. i sometimes put little pieces of opal under the dichro on my pendants and large earrings. so, typically, i might have a cobalt base (transparent), a bunch of dichro pieces, and somewhere in there a small piece of opal lavender or pale green. i dont use the opals very much in this manner. i guess i do it out of curiosity once in awhile, but i never find the results terribly exciting.
there is one big producer of dichroic jewelry who does most of her work on a light opal background, either white or vanilla, and then covers it with a blizzard of different colors of dichro, and clear cap. i think she's laying up a sheet of whatever size, fusing it, and then cutting it up to make her pieces, which are sometimes specific cut out shapes, like stars. some of them have a channel cast in them, so maybe she makes some of her lay-ups with a welding rod in there for the channel, fuses it, pulls out the rod, and then cuts up the piece into pendants, and firepolishes. her edges are pretty sharp and clean, not rounded, so i think firepolish is what's done.
i've never tried making a bigger piece in this fashion. i make pendants one at a time, and my earrings match, left and right. the person i'm referring to doesn't worry about whether her earrings are exactly a matched pair, which works well ... i like her pieces ... very much like opals, free-form, quite pretty.
sometimes it's nice to look at somebody's work and NOT know exactly how it's done. i dont always try to find out, either ... it keeps the magic there to have the question of method lurking in my mind.
If you want straight sides with no indentation, yet a rounded appearance to the edge then you are firing way too hot. try lowering the temps and soaking longer. If you look at my pieces you'll see what I mean.
If you want a very straight side then you need to coldwork and firepolish.
experiment with your temperatures to get the look you want,
For a more 'organic' look I make up dichro-BE pieces and then smash and re-arrange them. Some of my favourite pieces have been through the kiln more than 5 times in this way (sorry, no pics). The dicho can break down a bit, but I like the way it looks.
Nurnan