What exactly is fused glass?

What is fused glass?

Fused glass is a technique where glass of various colours, patterns and textures is melted or fused together in a glass kiln to produce a jewellery, ornaments, dishes, bowls and decorative pieces of art. Sometimes, as special glass called dichroic glass is used, most often when making jewellery as it is more expensive. The temperature of the kiln is varied to produce different effects

Fused glass uses several techniques, fusing – split into full fusing and a tack fusing, slumping and casting.

Full fusing – this will result in the pieces of glass becoming fully merged together.

An example of a full fuse pendant capped with clear glass.

Tack fusing – this is done at a lower temperature that a full fuse and will result in some texture being left on the glass item, The temperature can be varied so that a hard tack fuse will be more merged than a fuse done at a lower tack temperature.

Examples of tack fused pendants – hard tack and soft tack, both of these have been left uncapped (no clear glass top)

Slumping – when a glass item needs to become a specific shape, such as a dish, the glass is placed over a mould and at a low temperature slump fuse the glass will ‘slump’ into the required shape.

An example of slumping in a fused glass coral bowl

Casting – small glass pieces know as frit is poured into moulds and then released after fusing