Terminology
Education can be a great gift. Here are some terms to help you become more familiar with my work.
What is Glass Cold Work and Dichroic Glass?
 The brilliant dichroic optical properties of dichroic glass are the result of multiple micro-layers of metal oxides. These thin layers of oxides have a total thickness of three to five millionths of an inch.
NASA developed dichroic glass for use in face shields in space suits. Multiple ultra-thin layers of different metals (gold, silver, titanium, chromium, aluminium, zirconium, magnesium, silicon) are applied to the surface of the glass. The glass is then kiln fired at extreme temperatures in a vacuum.
The resulting plate of dichroic glass can then be fused with other glass in multiple firings. Certain wavelengths of light will either pass through or be reflected, causing an array of colour to be visible. Due to variations in the firing process, individual results can never be exactly reproduced; each piece of fused dichroic glass is unique and no two pieces are ever the same.
Cold work includes traditional stained glass work as well as other methods of shaping glass at room temperature. Glass can also be cut with a diamond saw, or copper wheels embedded with abrasives, and polished to give gleaming facets; the technique used in creating Waterford crystal. Art is sometimes etched into glass via the use of acid, caustic, or abrasive substances. Traditionally this was done after the glass was blown or cast.
In the 1920s a new mould-etch process was invented, in which art was etched directly into the mould, so that each cast piece emerged from the mould with the image already on the surface of the glass. This reduced manufacturing costs and, combined with a wider use of colored glass, led to cheap glassware in the 1930s, which later became known as Depression glass. As the types of acids used in this process are extremely hazardous, abrasive methods have gained popularity.
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