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I am new to glass fusing. Currently I am making dichoric jewelry and have used both kiln wash and fiber paper underneath. I notice in both cases that the underside of the jewelry is rough. Especially the fiber paper. I have purchased dichroic jewelry in the past that has a nice smooth underside. Can anyone tell me how that is achieved.

You will get your smoothest result with kiln wash or Thinfire. If you are using kiln wash, you might want to try to smooth out the brush strokes even more 'sanding' it- once dry - with the palm of your hand and then vacuum off the dust.

Any kiln fired piece will have some texture on the shelf side of the piece. If 'sanding' down the primer doesn't work well enough for you try some thinfire paper...it's the smoothest of all. You should wear a respirator when cleaning up fired papers (or scraping off primer)...but thinfire is the most dusty of all. Wet clean up is a good idea.

Take it a notch further, and consider cold working the piece to a high gloss. That is pretty labor intensive, but what you put into it depends on where you want to take it.

smooth undersides can be achieved using a flat lapping machine. The piece is ground with finer and finer grits and then polished with cerium oxide. I got an 8" grinder from Hisglassworks.com as a Christmas gift and it raised the level of my workmanship considerably. With practice, it is possible to get a mirror finish and eliminate the need for fire-polishing (one less firing, yeah!!).

DOLORES

I wouldn't work any harder to get that smooth bottom than I had to... on jewelry pieces, a good kiln-washed shelf using BE wash should do the trick. I also find the irridized side down is more forgiving. Are you in the magnot exchange this year? That's a really good place to check out works and find out from the artist what they did to get those results. I got lots of very perfect bottoms a few years ago and most were fired on BE kilnwash. In fact, it's why I switched.

Is BE wash the name of the brand? I have never heard of the Magnot exchange. How do I get involved?

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions!

Karon

I like that- those of us who didn't participate in the exchange this year made magnots!!!!

Perhaps the jewelry you are refering to has been flameworked.

Jack

Marty wrote:I like that- those of us who didn't participate in the exchange this year made magnots!!!!

LOL. That's what Mike calls the maglesses, but maybe better for the non-participants! You magNOTeer, what do you mean you're not participating!? Too late for this year's exchange but check the separate magnet board for advance notice of next year's exchange. The kilnwash is by Bullseye and you can buy it through their resource center and at most suppliers.