I use dichroic glass in almost every bead I make and get a lot of questions about working with dichroic glass so I've wanted to do a tutorial for a long time. Unfortunately it took me over 2 years but it's finally here now! My hope for this tutorial is to save you money, both in burned dichro and by giving you a better idea of what kind of dichroic glass you want to work with before you purchase it.
It's available over at Etsy and is $9, coincidentally about the same price as a ounce of dichoic glass.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/2008693...ichroic-glass?
Here's the info on it...
Dichroic glass: the glass that can be responsible for the most brilliant eye catching sparkle... or an expensive sooty gray waste of glass. It's a favorite among fused glass artists, but it's a shame that many lampworkers shy away from it.
The goal of this tutorial is to teach you how to avoid burning your dichro and to discuss colors and types of coatings that are trickier to use than others. It also offers many creative ideas on how to use dichro. I'm hoping that this tutorial will be a help to those who have never worked with dichroic glass, to those who have used it and been unhappy with the results, or for those who are simply looking for creative new ways to use it. This tutorial also offers tips, ideas and inspiration to work with it in an "out of the box" way.
My intentions for this tutorial is to give you a lot better idea of what types of dichro you want to purchase to start out with after reading this, hopefully saving you a lot of money.
I do not cover dichroic on copper or how to use loose dichro flakes intended for painting, as both the techniques to use them and the intended achieved finished look are quite different. This tutorial is for working with dichroic-coated glass. I work with a hothead mainly, but have also worked with dichroic glass on oxygen propane torches. Though hotheads may be advantageous for working with dichro because of the cooler flame, any torch is fine as long as you are proficient at adjusting the torch to a fairly cool flame.
This tutorial is 18 pages long. The file has been compressed to save on download time.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/2008693...ichroic-glass?