What did I do? Fusing gone bad!

deb.co · Post by **deb.co** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 11:46 pm

I'm new to fusing and I'd like your opinion as to what I did wrong. I did a test strip with all of the glass and it looked like it was all compatible. I suspect that I'm reading my stressometer incorrectly. Can you tell by the break pattern?

Thanks for your help!

Deb

http://community.webshots.com/photo/109 ... 5052yGKyvU

Brock · Post by **Brock** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 11:50 pm

It looks to me like ALL your streaky is incompatible with the trans blue.

Ron Coleman · Post by **Ron Coleman** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 12:22 am

That's the best example of incompatible glass I've seen in a while. Brad should use that picture in his next book.

The interesting thing to me are the sunken areas along the cracks in the transparent blue glass. Looks like the glass pulled apart before it was solid. I wonder if the glass was refired to heal the cracks?

Ron

Jackie Beckman · Post by **Jackie Beckman** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 2:21 am

That's the best example of incompatible glass I've seen in a while. Brad should use that picture in his next book.

Ha! Ron, as I was looking at the picture the exact same thought - even the exact same words, were going through my mind! Funny!

Dayle Ann · Post by **Dayle Ann** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:26 am

Deb, I am new to fused glass too, and I'm trying my best to learn from other folks' mistakes so I can avoid them!

What kind of glass did you use? On my monitor it looks as if you capped the squares with clear. If you did cap, I'm wondering if perhaps it was a different sort of glass, and that might be the problem? Are the cracks in the cap, or in the squares?

Dayle Ann

Tony Smith · Post by **Tony Smith** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:45 am

I think Brock nailed it here. The clear cap is compatible with the light and dark blue squares, everything else is a different COE and not compatible with the clear.

So, what you did wrong was you mixed glasses. In the future, try to stick with the tested-compatible glasses. 90 COE with 90 COE, 96 COE with 96 COE, etc... And if you decide to mix manufacturers, even if they have the same advertised COE, you might want to test them like you did here to see if they are really compatible or not.

Tony

deb.co · Post by **deb.co** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 9:26 am

Thanks for all of your help!

It wasn't refired. That is the original fire.

I did cap it with clear. The clear is BE compatible. the light blue is Uroboros that was not listed as compatible, but I did a test strip and it turned out okay. The streaky blue was an unknown glass that I had and again tested it on the clear strip for compatability. (This is my "major malfunction!") It looks okay to me! I think I need to work on my reading! Then there is one piece of dicroic in each long row. The dicroic was listed as 90 and I didn't test it. Maybe I should have tested it too.

I must admit that I've done stained glass for many years, so I've got quite an inventory of untested glass. I'll probably experiment more than most beginners.

Thanks again!

PDXBarbara · Post by **PDXBarbara** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 2:20 pm

Ron Coleman wrote:That's the best example of incompatible glass I've seen in a while. Brad should use that picture in his next book.
Ron

Ron... you're so right... the piece pictured is worth much more than its weight in prose. (yow, get a-hold of yourself, Barb...)

xxoo
Barbara

Barbara Muth · Post by **Barbara Muth** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 3:33 pm

deb.co wrote:Thanks for all of your help!

It wasn't refired. That is the original fire.

I did cap it with clear. The clear is BE compatible. the light blue is Uroboros that was not listed as compatible, but I did a test strip and it turned out okay. The streaky blue was an unknown glass that I had and again tested it on the clear strip for compatability. (This is my "major malfunction!") It looks okay to me! I think I need to work on my reading! Then there is one piece of dicroic in each long row. The dicroic was listed as 90 and I didn't test it. Maybe I should have tested it too.

I must admit that I've done stained glass for many years, so I've got quite an inventory of untested glass. I'll probably experiment more than most beginners.

Thanks again!

You may find all of that experimenting to be costly in terms of your time and lost glass. Two pieces of glass may test as marginally compatible with your base (the clear strip) but be far enough away from each other in compatibility that they should not mate in the kiln. For example: maybe one is 89 COE and the other 91 coe. Neither exhibits incompatibility with the clear, but fused with each other they mare likely to cause problems. Streaky glasses are even more likely to be incompatibilityculprits. Your best bet, when working with glasses like the ones you have, is to fuse them to themselves and not mix from one sheet to another. Or sell the glass and buy tested compatible glass like BE or System 96.

And remember that the incompatibility, particularly when it isn't egregious, may not show up right away. I recently saw a piece in a show that exhibited a clear incompatibility crack. The piece was 3 years old and had been fine until it sat in a sunny window for a few days in this exposition.

Barbara

deb.co · Post by **deb.co** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 8:24 pm

Words of wisdom Barbara! Thanks so much!

Judy Schnabel · Post by **Judy Schnabel** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 10:59 pm

Deb,

If you are going to continue doing stained glass, move all that glass to a separate part of your studio.

Start buying COE 90 or 96; stick with one or the other and go from there. Keep them as far apart as possible. I still have glass from my stained glass days and do use it occasionally. Also, I do fire a lot of regular Spectrum glass but I keep it totally separate from my System 96. After a while I'm now able to tell the difference at a glance between regular Spectrum and 96, but I still keep them separated.

Judy