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Q&A – Glass Terminology

 

Annealing is the process of cooling a piece of glass to remove stress. Matt Musick Glass Designs always kiln anneals its glass art.

 

Borosilicate glass (AKA boro) is a type of glass with boron oxide added. The boron oxide allows the glass to handle heat better than typical glass.  Borosilicate glass is more difficult to make than traditional glass due to the high melting temperature, but it has superior durability.  Although borosilicate glass is very strong and hard, it is still glass and can break with heavy abuse or drops.

I only use borosilicate glass to create my art.

 

Frit is glass that has been broken or ground into smaller pieces.  It can be 1 color, many colors, raised or smooth.  The frit is used in glassmaking to add speckled color.

 

Fume / Fuming is a glass technique in which a very thin layer of vaporized metal (silver, gold) is applied to a glass surface. Matt Musick Glass Designs uses .999 silver fume to make many universe or galaxy pendants.

 

Implosion is a glass technique in which fingers of glass are created within another piece of clear glass.  This technique is used in many glass flower and mushroom pendants.

 

Lampworking (AKA torchworking) is a type of glasswork.  A torch or lamp is used to melt rods of glass.  Then while the glass is in a molten state, it is manipulated by blowing, shaping with tools and hand movements.  It differs from glassblowing which uses a furnace as a primary heat source.

Lampworking is how I create all the glass products for Matt Musick Glass Designs.

 

 

 

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