Fusing Tiles

[Rebekah]

Hey folkses!

We are building a new house and I have a wild hair up my butt that is telling me to make the tiles for the backsplash in the kitchen.

I have never fused anything before, but it doesn't look that difficult. (Difficult is making a 3" long tube bead with decoration!! :lol: ) I freely acknowledge that I don't know from whence I speak, though, and may be biting off more than my ample mouth can chew.

What I need to know is:

Are there forms I can use to make the tiles uniform in size?
What size kiln do I need so that I don't have to make them just 3 or 4 at a time?

I would ideally like to make at least 6 4x4 tiles at a time. Or maybe I can do 6x6 tiles? I don't know! I really need to know what size kiln I should be looking at. The only one I have is the McKinney toolbox and can't do anything in it except anneal beads. The sounds of crickets chirping are the only action that thing has gotten in a while, though. Need to get off my butt and make some beads.

If the tiles are 4x4, I will need to make about 140 tiles. That's a lotta tiles!!!

HELP!!!

Seriously confused and uneducated,
Rebekah

[CorriDawn]

I am moving this thread to the Tips, techniques and questions forum where hopefully you will get more answers

[dogmaw]

There are molds you can get to keep your tiles all the same size, but if you are doing square tiles you probably won't need them. You can just cut the glass square and put it in the kiln to fuse. What kind of kiln you ask? Well, how much money do you have? :twisted: If you get a small kiln you may only be able to fuse one 6x6 tile at a time. A larger kiln means more pieces. A great place to start is www.warmglass.com They have all kinds of fusing info and project there!

[bolimasa]

Here are some things I've done recently. In my (limited!) experience it is hard to make things perfectly square. I think to do this you need to use a mold or dams, or cold work and fire polish after fusing. By this I mean cutting your tile square than doing a low temp fire to fire polish your edges. I have yet to try this since I don't have a glass saw. A local fuser told me to go to harbor freight and buy a tile saw for this purpose. I haven't done it yet, but I'm thinking about it. I'm a complete newbie fuser so I have a lot to learn.

You might find fusing harder than it looks, I know I sure have. That said, I think a tile will be a pretty do-able, easy to learn, project.

[Rebekah]

Okay, for all the fusers, though, I am having trouble with kiln size... I suck at dimensional stuff and can't figure out which size kiln would be best so that it wouldn't take me months to get this done. Any ideas? Please?

Thanks for the pics of the tiles! Those are so pretty. The ones I want to do should be pretty easy. Just three squares, each color smaller than the next, stacked on top of each other and fused flat. Sounds pretty easy, right? Nothing fancy. No real design work.

Ask Marjorie and Deanna... I am more of a tell me and I'll do it than a figure it out on my own sort of person. LOL It's easier for me to follow advice about this sort of thing and then work from there.

Rebekah

[midniteburner]

Hey girl,

You need to go to LEB Glass in Greenville. It's on Wade Hampton, across from the IHOP. Talk to Lou Ellen. She has the perfect kiln to do this type of job already.

To tell you the truth, she could do these tiles cheaper than you buying all the equipment and going through the trial and failure thing.

Sara

[Rebekah]

Sara,

I have talked to her about taking a class before the hurricane when we were supposed to be leaving in two weeks for Louisiana to start building the house. Best laid plans, and all that, we're waiting a while longer to start with all the upheaval down there now.

The house is going to be my "glass house" with knobs that I make for the cabinets, glass mosaics, and glass everywhere I can put it. I am dying to do as much of the work myself as I can.

Rebekah

[Three Muses Glass]

Skutt's Clamshell has I think a 20" square shelf. I have an Evenheat bathtub/coffin kiln, I think the number is 2541 maybe. You can fit alotta in that puppy. If you really want to go for the gold, check out Genesis bell kilns, or Glass Glow. The Genesis is my dream kiln, but with that price tag I'll just keep on dreamin'!!!

If you're going to do the 3 squares on top of each other like that, you might want to test before making the whole boatload. I can see the bottom one getting splinters and 'dogboning' from not having enough volume. However, if you do 2 full squares on the bottom, maybe the very bottom one clear (cheaper, easier to cut and you're not going to see it anyway), and then the other 2 on top of that, you'll get some spreading if you don't dam it, but it should be nice and rounded. Dogboning and splinters are just a PITA to clean up and if you're doing that many tiles..... =;

[Rebekah]

Hey Rebecca, (wow, feels weird to spell it like that :)

I will be using a mold since I will need so many of a pretty uniform size. Thanks so much for the tip about stacking the bottom two. I may have been in a tizzy over that one. As long as I use a mold, I should be fine, right?

Rebekah (ahh, back to normal :)

[Three Muses Glass]

Hey backatcha Rebekah! I like the way yours is spelled.
I don't see why you'd need a mold for uniform size as long as you cut them the same. You'd probably have to re-kilnwash them after every full fuse and since that's one of my least favorite activities, I'd avoid it like the plague. But that's just me! I've got 4 shelves sitting out in the shop mocking me right now. Ugh.

I've had the same idea about glass tiling my backsplash in the kitchen, but I'm doing big blocks of stuff and then cutting them down on the tile saw and doing a firepolish to round the edges so the grout looks nice. Nothing is going to be too uniform or the same design wise, just colors and size. It's been a fun project so far but it's taking me a looooooooong time! I'm scraping and painting the cabinets too, adding a pantry and making handles for the doors. I'm just glad the backsplash is kind of small! And adding the pantry by taking out a few cabinets will be 8 less handles. hehehe

[dogmaw]

I've started using kiln paper instead of kiln wash. Much quicker, and easier to clean up.

[Lizabeads]

Ya'll show pictures.. I would love to know about your knobs/handles... I am interested in those but everytime I try they just aren't what I am looking for... :waving:

[Rebekah]

Hey Elizabeth,

I haven't started the drawer pulls yet, but the kitchen theme is very clean and as modern as I can afford. (Slab cabinets are so freaking expensive!) So, I am planning to make them in a cone shape in the colors of the kitchen which will be (now, wait for it.... it's a lil strange, but I see it all over the home decorating mags and I have the cajones to try it) asparagus and mysteria, aka green and purple. They are the most beautiful hues too. The purple almost exactly matches one of the moretti special colors and I haven't found a green that works yet. Bummer.

The thing that I am going to have to try to find, though, are the colors in bullseye or Spectrum 96 so that I can have rods to match since moretti doesn't have the green that I need. Can't find a hue that's right. The moretti stuff is too yellow. Maybe petro, but it's too green and too stinkin bleedy.

I am making the knobs to save money and to fit in with my glass house theme. It's just too easy to make a bead on the end of a mandrel not to! LOL Plus, it will give the cabinets a custom look that we otherwise couldn't afford.

Man, I talk too much.
Rebekah

[Lizabeads]

Hey Elizabeth,

I haven't started the drawer pulls yet, but the kitchen theme is very clean and as modern as I can afford. (Slab cabinets are so freaking expensive!) So, I am planning to make them in a cone shape in the colors of the kitchen which will be (now, wait for it.... it's a lil strange, but I see it all over the home decorating mags and I have the cajones to try it) asparagus and mysteria, aka green and purple. They are the most beautiful hues too. The purple almost exactly matches one of the moretti special colors and I haven't found a green that works yet. Bummer.

The thing that I am going to have to try to find, though, are the colors in bullseye or Spectrum 96 so that I can have rods to match since moretti doesn't have the green that I need. Can't find a hue that's right. The moretti stuff is too yellow. Maybe petro, but it's too green and too stinkin bleedy.

I am making the knobs to save money and to fit in with my glass house theme. It's just too easy to make a bead on the end of a mandrel not to! LOL Plus, it will give the cabinets a custom look that we otherwise couldn't afford.

Man, I talk too much.
Rebekah

Hey, those colors aren't strange at all to me.. in fact... believe it or not.. that is the color I am doing my kitchen in and did my bathroom and any other room my family let me !! I LOVE IT... it is beautiful... I have been looking at dishes but the only ones that are near the colors I like are fiesta and that's to damn expensive...lol I want to mix the sets so I would have to buy two sets... great colors... let me know what you find rod wise.. I may have to follow suit.. lol
:grin:
My craft shed is purple and green.. the walls are.. half purple and half green... going to find a pic..

[Lizabeads]

Here it is, but the colors don't look exact to me... the green is not as greeny as I wanted but I got it for 1.00 per gallon...lol I did some shelving in a morracan red so the room looks carribean...lol BRIGHT.. cheery...
3013

[BillBrach]

You need something like the 24" across inside Paragon (23" round shelf). It will cost about $1300. Even with dams to contain the glass, I'd bet you will still have to cold work the edges of each tile to get them to the same size and squareness.

I've been fusing for about a year and a half, have a kiln big enough, and would NOT on a bet try to make 140 tiles !! 6 maybe, but NOT 140 !!

As a substitute, why not make your own ceramic tiles for the backsplash ?? It still satisfies the 'glassie' in you, 'cause the glazes are basically glass !! You could take a class and make them there.

[Lizabeads]

You need something like the 24" across inside Paragon. It will cost about $1300. Even with dams to contain the glass, I'd bet you will still have to cold work the edges of each tile to get them to the same size.

I've been fusing for about a year and a half, have a kiln big enough, and would NOT a bet try to make 140 tiles !! 6 maybe, but NOT 140 !!
Does sound like ALOT of work and I don't even know how !!! rofl.. #-o

[Rebekah]

I know, I'm a sucker, but I really wanna do it. I have the time and want to learn something new.

Cool studio, Elizabeth.

Thanks, Bill. I know it's a sad, paltry amount, but I am limited to $500 to spend on the kiln. Trying to stay within the budget of the house. Maybe I can find a used one on eBay.

Rebekah