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I want to brighten up some fused pendants, and wondering what metals can be used. I envision using them something like frits, only with foil or leaf. I have silver, gold, and paladium--all from my lampworking. Is it possible to use this on top? Or would it just burn out unless covered by a cap of clear glass?

Also, I assume this could not be placed touching dichro, right?

I have used copper, silver and gold. But always encased under some clear. Everything that was on the surface became burnt.

I am not sure about how they would mix with irids. In glassblowing, I always got interesting reactions from the different metals. If the frit is copper based, and you put gold or silver on top, you get a reaction. try it.

Brock posted under a recent thread about foils that he both caps foils and has them on the surface, not burnt out, as well. You will need to use foils and not leaf for this purpose. Palladium is so pretty....

http://www.warmglass.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... light=foil

Barbara

Well, I tried a very limited experiment with gold and paladium. Using 3/4" square pieces of Bullseye, I placed a piece of gold on two pieces, and capped one with Bullseye thin clear. I did the same thing with palladium.

The results--on the gold, uncapped produced a brighter finish, but not shiny. It did seem to fuse well, though. Capped was less interesting--that wispy look that was described on the other thread.

I got the opposite effect on the palladium. The uncapped was very poorly fused, and tended to flake off. There was a distinct color change to a greenish-gold-coppery effect. The capped palladium also had some coppery elements, but most of it looked fairly silvery. Actually, it reminded me of well crinkled and aged aluminum foil.

Unfortunately neither produced the brightening element I was looking for. I did find it in clear silver dichro, though, and I'll use that.

daffodildeb wrote:The capped palladium also had some coppery elements, but most of it looked fairly silvery. Actually, it reminded me of well crinkled and aged aluminum foil.

Unfortunately neither produced the brightening element I was looking for. I did find it in clear silver dichro, though, and I'll use that.

Fuse the Palladium a second time and it will turn silver.

Tim

Don't know if this effect is what you are looking for, but the Winter 2003 issue of Glass Patterns Quarterly has an article about painting on fused glass with Art Clay Silver Overlay Paste; the sample in the article is a fused dichroic pendant.

Lynn g

Try brass foil or leaf, too. This has to be capped, but the brass turns a very light brass shade; almost like a platnium color. If you visit a machine shop you can pick up spirals of brass and bronze from a lathe: clean them well and cap them with clear, and the effect is interesting. Small amounts of these seem to work fine between layers of glass.