enamels on recycle glass
 

hi all, I just cast a Frankenstein face out of cheap glass marbles from the dollar store. It came out ok but does not look scary enough for the sculpture im making. I want to add some black enamel or frit on the surface to spooky it up does anyone know if the Thompson enamels will stick to coe 90ish glass
thanks all.
https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hpho...45285810_n.jpg

With it's greenish cast, that could possibly be plain float. Have you tested a small piece with 90? Call Thompson and see what they think!

Neat piece, though.

I don't know the answer to your question about enamels, but if that does turn out to not be a good idea you could also try oil painting on the glass. One LE person, that I can think of offhand, did oil painting on their glass:

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...ghlight=puppet

Not sure if it would achieve the look you're going for, but thought I'd throw the idea out there.

I love the way the marbles seemed to have melted together, and formed what seems to be a large scale appearance.

I have never used enamels on recycled glass but I have seen others that have with no problems.
Bob

Sandblasting for texture and then oil painting would do the trick for you. Chemical etching would work to some extent but not as well as sandblasting. If you do enamels you'll have to reheat the piece, greatly increasing the risk of having it break.

Robert

Its in the kiln right now covered in enamels. Slow ramp up to 1200 for the win. Hope this works :) I post a picture win or loose

Let us know how it turns out.
Bob

Yes, I'm curious as well!

Love this!

*impatient foot tapping*

Thompsons has a Series for float or window glass. This is what I use for recycled glass and bottles. Most bottle glass seems to run 84 to 87 COE

Did it work?

Alli

Thompson will help you out, they have a great bunch of people there.

I've also done oil painting on etched glass, it has a great "glow" effect.

But anyways, how did it turn out?

I'll post some pictures Monday it looked like it worked great

Yay! Can't wait:)

Frankenstein sculpture with under-glaze enamels fired to 1200 degrees. I ramped the kiln up slowly to 1200 then down to 1000 for a 6 hour anneal at 1000
https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hpho...71235891_n.jpg

Fantastic!

Looks great.
Bob

Bad ass. Seriously great.

That really brought out all the details. Cool texture.

Nicely done!

That is brilliant! Really brings out the brow and hooded eyes.

Awesome job.

Alli

I love that the enamels brought out all the detail, that really works.

But I also liked seeing the marbles in the first picture, now hidden by enamel. If I were doing this sort of thing, I would experiment with making the hexagons of the former marbles part of the design--probably not Frank's head, but something simpler, where the pattern would add to the design.

I don't fuse, so am just theorizing; could you coat some of the marbles with enamel or fine frit before putting them in the mold? then you'd get balls or multidimensional hexagons or spots of color throughout