fusing sheets together

[Terry Gallentine]

I am looking at fusing two 24"x 48" sheets together of 5mm Oceanside clear. I am considering doing a simple edge overlap fusing but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to how much overlap is the best at this thickness to get a minimum ridge in the glass. Thanks

[Kevin Midgley]

4 sheets could give you a flat seam and flat sheet with a staggered overlap.

[Terry Gallentine]

Thanks for the response Kevin but I am not sure what it means. I was just wondering if I lay down a sheet of the 5mm and then lay another sheet slightly on one edge of the first one, how much overlap would work best without causing a lot of irregularity in the finished piece.

[Brad Walker]

Are you trying to fuse two pieces together edge to edge? If so, that's not possible with 5mm glass without overlapping. My guess is that no matter the size of the overlap you'll still get a bump and probably some distortion of the piece because of the temperature you'd need to fire at to minimize the bump.

If instead you used, for instance, 3mm glass you could achieve what you're trying to do by overlapping multiple pieces so that the entire arrangement is 6mm thick. Done correctly, that would eliminate the bump but you would get seams. (I think this may be close to what Kevin was suggesting.)

[Terry Gallentine]

Thanks Brad. I now understand what Kevin was saying about staggering multiple sheets to get an even seam. The problem is that staggering multiple sheets will also create more of a bubble problem between the sheets. I was just hoping that someone out there had an idea of how minimal a simple overlap could be without creating a weak trench in the glass. I will probably run some tests to see. First, I will try an overlap that is the same as the thickness of the glass (5mm) to see if that is enough join the two pieces. If it is, that would be a simple formula to follow. Thanks again Brad and Kevin.

[Brad Walker]

Thinking about it, you may be able to join them together side by side with no overlap if you dam the pieces so they can't move apart. I know this works for pieces that are thicker than 6mm, but with 5mm you may not get enough movement for it to work.

Worth a try, if you're experimenting.

[Terry Gallentine]

Thanks Brad. I will give it a try.

[Kevin Midgley]

I would fire a little hotter than normal to compensate for the non movement of 5mm pieces as compared to 6mm.

[Terry Gallentine]

Thanks Kevin.