Thursday, April 12, 2012

How to Make Dichroic Purse Hangers

Materials:
Assortment of System 96 dichroic from Slumpy's
Slumpy's new bracelet finding, and Aanraku key fob and purse hanger
No Days Bailbond and a heat gun



1) Cut the dichroic glass into circles.  Using a circle cutter (ideally), cut circles to just less than the diameter of the size you're trying to fit. This lets you avoid having to grind the finished pieces to fit the bevel cups of your findings.
Dichroic cut into circles to fit the findings

2) Full Fuse in a kiln. Make sure that you have kiln washed the shelf, or are firing on ThinFire. This prevents the glass from permanently sticking to your kiln shelf. In my small jewelry-sized kiln (7" shelf), I fired at 500 degrees per hour to 1500ยบ F and held for ~8 minutes. I didn't worry about an annealing schedule because the pieces are small and the big kiln was firing in the kiln room.
Full fuse in Little Miss - my Paragon Caldera kiln
3) Attach the glass cabochons to the findings.  I use No Days BailBond to attach my findings. It's quick and easy, non-toxic, and if the pieces don't sell, I can easily switch out the cabochons for something that will sell. As soon as the piece cools (5-10 minutes), it's ready to use!


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