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Old 2007-07-11, 2:33pm
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Emily Emily is offline
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I don't have my dichro slumping directions on this computer, so I'm going to have to do this from memory -- I hope I don't get it too far wrong. (Obviously you can buy strips that have been run through the kiln to have their edges rounded, but if you already have sheet dichro or strips that haven't been kilned, or if you want a size that the suppliers don't carry, here's how I do it.) Debbie's right -- cut your dichro and lay it coated side down on a kiln shelf. Make sure the glass is clean. It's OK to leave Sharpie marks -- they burn off. My firing schedule is 0 to 1000 F over an hour, 1000 to 1350-1400 over 35 to 45 minutes, hold at slumping temp (your chosen temp between 1350-1400) for 10 minutes, cool as fast as possible to 1100-1050, then anneal and cool as you would normally for Effetre. The glass is quite thin, so I give it a 15 minute soak at 968, which is what I use for annealing temp, then ramp down to 800 over 2 hours, then turn the kiln off and let it cool by itself. I use wide strips of dichro, and this usually just rounds the edges a little bit. Sometimes the slumped strips you buy are very rounded, which I don't like all that much. (Some people might prefer that.) I put layers of encasing over my dichro and so I don't want the strips themselves to be very thick.

If your kiln has a peephole, you can look in when it gets to your slumping temperature. (Wear eye protection.) You should be able to see the edges rounding. If the edges of the glass don't round enough, you can try increasing the temperature a little more, or maybe leaving the glass in a little bit longer at the top temperature. Kilns vary, which is why there's some wiggle room in these directions. (Or so it was explained to me -- I am not a fuser. I was given these directions by a fuser, and I follow them on a trained-monkey basis, and so far they've worked for me.)

Even if you pre-fuse/pre-slump/whatever the right term for this process is, 104 dichro is still tricky to use. I've used a lot of it, and I've ruined a WHOLE lot of it. I don't know what you're used to using. I hear Bullseye dichro is easier, but I'm no good with Bullseye, period, so I've never played with its dichro. I don't understand how dichro can possibly stand up to the heat that's required for boro. I see dichro in boro pieces, but deep down I really, really don't believe it's true. (There's gotta be a trick there. I know it. Or maybe they're just not giving us Moretti people the good stuff. . . )

Are you sealing the edges on your dichro strips after you lay them on your bead? After you put the piece down on the bead, use a tool to push some of the clear down over each of the edges of the strip. If you don't seal all of the edges, the dichro coating will seep out from underneath and will go gray and scummy. If you don't get it all sealed fast enough or well enough and you get some scum, you can take it off with tweezers, and dab some clear over the edge to try to seal it again.

Coatings by Sandberg (CBS) is a good brand. CBS doesn't make glass -- they put dichro coatings on different kinds of glass, including some 104 (although I get the impression 104 isn't one of their big sellers). The "Premium" colors have a thicker coating than the "standard" colors, because they require an extra pass with the coating machine (that's what they told me, anyway). The Premium colors do seem to be brighter, and I can say from personal experience that my favorite Rainbow 2 (Premium) is harder to ruin than Rainbow 1 (Standard). Been there, done that, got the crap beads to prove it. (Note that I say "harder to ruin," not "impossible to ruin." Nothing is idiotproof to those of us who are truly talented at being idiots. )

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