Make an Opal Glass Cab
Though I love
stone cabochons, as a glass artists, I was drawn to making glass cabs to incorporate into my jewelry designs. After much experimentation, I have made a number of glass cabs that I’m very happy with. Among these are what I call my "Opal Glass Cabs." By combining regular clear glass and clear Dichroic glass, you can make some beautiful glass cabs that have an opalescent look to them.
You’ll need:
clear glass
*your choice of clear Dichroic glass
glass set-up
fusing glue or white glue that dries clear
*Dichroic glass either has black or clear on one side. As with all of this beautiful glass, the clear comes in a wide variety of colors and patterns. Pictured below is rainbow clear (which I adore), a lacy patterned clear, and a checkered clear pattern.
1. To begin, cut out squares of clear glass. This can be any size you want, but you need at least 2 pieces each of one size. For my cabs, I made some 1 inch by 1 inch square and some 1 inch by ¾ inch. Squares are the easiest shapes to cut in glass, but of course, you could cut any shape you want. Just make sure you have two that are about the same size.
2. Once you have your squares cut, use your grinder to round off the ends of all the squares.
3. After grinding, rinse and dry your glass so it’s nice and clean.
4. Lay out your squares so that you have 2 pieces of glass grouped together. I usually make a number of cabs at once and lay all my pieces on a cookie sheet.
5. Now select the Dichroic glass you want to use. For some cabs, I cut up odd shapes of the dicro and used 2 or 3 different pieces for each cab. For other cabs, I used one piece of dicro and cut it to be a little smaller than the clear piece. I tend to like to have the different pieces of dicro mixed, but experiment and see what you prefer.
Next Page->To finish and fuse the cabs - includes a printer friendly link.
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All graphics created by Tammy Powley.
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