Building outdoor screen - Epoxy - sources?

[tonyroberts]

After an age of making sculptural cast glass, I have LOADS of reject pieces, some large, many wonderfully coloured... so have decided to use them to create an outdoor screen. I intend then to set these pieces as a chaos of elements into panels approx 48x12x1", formed from black epoxy, presumably mixed with sand as a filler, and with embedded stainless steel rods to provide rigidity. The panels will be built into a 'fence' of panels, four panels high.

I have seen Dalle de verre of course... but that uses much more regular glass than that I'll be incorporating.

My questions:

Any good tips/warnings?

Where on earth do I get the epoxy? Who sells dalle de verre epoxy? Or do you make it yourself?

Tony

[Tom Fuhrman]

check with Blenko, they used to sell the epoxy for use with their glass.

[LisaDC]

Maybe Bohle in Germany?

[Brad Walker]

Any reason why you wouldn't use silicone instead of epoxy?

[Bert Weiss]

I once tried to set a glass sculpture base using dalle de verre epoxy. The heat, from the epoxy setting, cracked my glass.

I was taught to make dalle de verre panels. Step one was to set the glass in a frame. Then you half fill the frame with sand, surrounding the glass. Then you pour the epoxy. So, the heat transfer to the glass is quite different than it was when I tried to set the bottom of the sculpture, in epoxy. This technique allows you to stop the pour short of the surface of the glass. Thinking about it, it probably significantly effects how the setting epoxy heats the glass.

[tonyroberts]

Thanks for the responses... from which I found that Key resins ( www.keyresin.com: Key #116 Slab Glass Epoxy) make the stuff I've seen, and have emailed them. I shall watch the heat issue, thanks Bert.

I wondered about silicone too... the cost is high... it's my fallback.

I hear that cement isn't advised because of cracking long-term resulting from the expansion/contraction rates of glass versus concrete.

Tony

[Bert Weiss]

Thanks for the responses... from which I found that Key resins ( http://www.keyresin.com: Key #116 Slab Glass Epoxy) make the stuff I've seen, and have emailed them. I shall watch the heat issue, thanks Bert.

I wondered about silicone too... the cost is high... it's my fallback.

I hear that cement isn't advised because of cracking long-term resulting from the expansion/contraction rates of glass versus concrete.

Tony

CR Laurence has a mortar for setting glass called X-pandotite.

[Mark Hall]

Temperature changes here in Minnesota make silicon the best choice for attaching glass inserts to metal outdoor works. Make sure you use silicon best designed for such use - Sil-pruf. It contains UV inhibitors, sticks to itself, and is most tunacious - it does however take 3 days to cure so needs time to set. The cool thing is the 3 hr. tooling time (and wonderful smooth flow) plus the fact it sticks to itself allowing focus on looking pretty on one side (letting it set-up) then do the other side knowing the material bonds into shape. The down side is that it's not available in clear, so I use black - which works with wrought iron anyway. Fantastic product for securing inserts!

[jolly]

Epoxy doesn't do well with UV light so make sure the product you use can tolerate sunlight.