The Pendant Project

Some friends helped me out with a problem; and as a thank you for their time and suggestions, I made geometric pendants based on the dominate colors in their wardrobe.

I cut, glue, stack the glass, and place in a kiln to fuse the pieces together.

Using a six segment program, the kiln is ramped up to 1425 degrees and then cooled down to 100 degrees. When programing the kiln, particular attention is given to sufficiently cooling down or annealing the glass so stress fractures will not appear months or even years later.



Each pendant is capped with a piece of clear glass in a second firing, following the same type of six segment, ramp up and cool down schedule. The cap glass is slightly larger than the piece to be capped -- appears bigger in the photo than it actually is. While the second firing is in progress, I start on the bails.

I begin with a flat piece of 24 gauge silver, a ruler to set the width, and a scribe to mark a line for me to use when sawing then divide the strip into three bails.












After sanding the strips to get a straight edge, I wrap each strip around something that will give me an opening large enough for a jump ring and chain to go through. Next, the bails go into a tumbler filled with water, a few drops of Dawn liquid soap and stainless steel shot. After four or five hours in the tumbler, the bails come out smooth and shiny.


When the pendants come out of the kiln after the second firing, I use sandpaper to scruff up the silver bail so the epoxy will have something to adhere to and stick the bail on the pendant.

And that, dear people, is how I make fused glass pendants. :D

Until next time, God bless.