In this post, I want to talk a little about dichroic glass. Dichroic glass is a glass that has had multiple thin layers of tiny crystals applied to it in a vacuum chamber. This mysterious crystalline coating was original developed for eye gear worn by astronauts when the U.S. was hot and heavy into the race for space. The coating that was developed turned out to have a number of applications unrelated to the space race and one of them turned out to be dichroic glass.
What I want to discuss here is what I call the water color effect that you can apply when using dichroic on lampworked beads. If you have ever done any water color painting, you know that the range of color variation in water colors is created by placing subtle layers of water color pigment over each other, thus creating new colors.
You can achieve a wide range of delicate dancing colors in dichroic glass by doing the same technique. I tend to use small pieces of dichroic glass when I am doing this technique because I can get so much more depth and color shifting.
I use only dichroic on clear pieces when I am making a multi layered bead because the clear glass that is the carrier for the dichroic crystals makes its’ own encasement that way and the clear protects the crystals from burning up in the flame. One of the secrets of having scum free dichroic in your beads, is to pinch the edges of the strip or piece of dichroic that you are applying to the bead core as it gets hot, which keeps the crystals from crawling up into the flame as the glass becomes liquid. Be sure to heat only the glass side of the dichroic piece, to protect the crystals from burning.
Another fun thing to do with this technique is to mix pattern dichroic with solid colors to add spots of interest. This is a fun way to use the small piece of dichroic and I find that I will use pieces as small 1/8″ x 1/8″, which I use as accents over the colors underneath.
Have fun and embrace the sparkle of dichroic.
Hi Pat
We have often admired your amazing work and thoroughly enjoy looking at your website. We have also ordered through you and had excellent service. Thank you.
Pat, the beads we make are fairly simplistic, however part of the enjoyment of lampworking is trying different things. We have seen EDP referred to quite often, can you enlighten us as to what this glass is?
Thanks for the tips on working with dichroic but how do you tell the coated side of clear dichroic. I have tried and tried and cannot see it even by looking at the edge. The clear I have looks purple one way and yellow the other. It is not varigated with a lot of color.
Thanks. Linda
Hi John & France,
EDP is a nickname that the beadmaking community gave to the color we call Purple Premium Opaque Pastel #591254 . The nickname comes from the tendency of this color to devitrify ( kind of a chalky look it develops after being melted). The devitrification can be burned off by slightly cooling the bead and then reintroducing it to the tip of the flame and warming the surface of the bead. This process pulls the gold pink back up to the surface of the bead.
Thank for the compliment on my work and my website. I learned PhotoShop and Dreamweaver so that I could make my website how I wanted it.
Ciao,
Pat Frantz
Hi Linda,
Here at Frantz Art Glass, I have all the dichroic strips annealed to make them easier to handle ( they do not explode or crack upon reheating) and this processing makes the dichroic slightly textured on the crystal side of the glass. I always use the crystal side down when I work and I lay all the dichroic I might use during the day crystal side down on a graphite pad so that I know which side is crystals and which is glass. I have a DVD on dichroic beadmaking that we sell at Frantz Art Glass, if you want more information, the number is #231545.
Ciao,
Pat Frantz
Pingback: Baby Shark blind pianist