Grinding Onwards

Winding Down The Gears

These are quaint little square beads, all shaped and ready to have the fittings applied. Made with a black glass back and a wispy, handmade clear glass cap. See the little whispers of white going across? They are little hearts, cogs, gears, winding stems and silhouettes of other symbols and shapes, encased in glass. These are ready to be wrapped in metal and have hanging loops added, think these four will have two loops on each side so they can be joined into links in a bracelet.

These peach background ones are the same size squares of glass, really small at 1/2" square. More little windings, cogs and gears, in a faintly mechanistic feminine sort of design.

These peach and gold colored squares are 3/4" size, with goldtone square shapes encased in clear glass, the edges all ground and ready to be wrapped in metal.

These may become earrings, either dangles or posts. Might torch some large earwires on them so they hang straight and don't wiggle and wave like dangles tend to do. The backs are deep coral peach color, so they could be reversible.

Want to try stamping some phrase into the brass and embedding it into the glass, like an affirmation, possibly to hang on a necklace.

Update on the two enameled glass gems that came out of the kiln.

They have been beveled and scrubbed hard to clean super-well, and are going back into the kiln for a fire polish on the bevels, to make them crystal clear and smooth, and remove the grinding wheel marks.

The extra clear glass on the sides from the fusing has been ground off, the edges squared up so they are regular clean edges. Could stop there and wrap with metal, but wanted to bevel these to make them more gem-like visually.

The bevels show up really clearly at this stage, because the beveling grinder leaves tiny scratches on the glass where they have had the 45 degree angles applied.

The next firing session in the kiln will remove all the scratches, polish the glass and leave a beveled but super shiny smooth edge on the fronts and sides.

Didn't bevel the back edges, just left them nice and flat. The fronts still have somewhat of a curved shape where the glass fused. It will take a couple of hours for the fire polish and the glass to cool down slowly (anneal), before these are ready again for more work.