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Making a Fused Glass DonutWith a hole in the center or off to the side, these forms can be very versatile. You can achieve various looks depending on the end product. There are several ways you can make these. Some of the ways to achieve the donut look would be to; drill a hole in a fused piece, use a purchased/homemade mold, or by free forming a shape. Let's look at these different methods and see how each one is achieved. Try them all, or pick one that appeals to your creative design.
Drill a HoleYou can fuse glass together, and then use a glass drill to put a hole in the middle of your piece. See drilling a hole on this web site. There are a couple of ways you can achieve this look.1. Using an electric drill, you will need two drill bits. One bit should be the size you want the outside of your donut, and the other should be the size of the inside hole. 2. Make your piece and drill a large hole in the center of your piece. This will also give you a donut shape, it just won't be round on the outside, but will have a hole in the center. Once you have drilled your piece, you will need to do some cold work to rid the piece of any dust particles. Now the piece will need to be put back inside the kiln and fired to achieve a fire polish.
MoldYou can use a mold that has a donut shape. For a look at these fused glass jewelry molds, please go to the Cookin With Glass site for some fantastic molds. This method is called "glass fusing frit casting".It is really simple to use these jewelry molds, and does require frit to fill up the forms. If you want a particular color, try making your own
frit
to use in these molds. For more information on using molds to achieve a donut look, please visit the
Jewelry Fusing Molds
section of this web site.
Free FormMy favorite is the free formed shape. These are fantastic for using scraps of left over glass. Just use scraps of the same color of glass, or mix and match the pieces.You can free form your glass donut by layering the glass pieces to get a piece with a space in the middle of the finished piece. These are more of an organic very one-of-a-kind donut shaped pieces. This look is achieved by layering glass in a circular, square, triangle, or very organic shape. Build up several layers of glass, being sure to leave a hole somewhere in the piece. The hole will get smaller as the glass melts and moves in the kiln, so allow enough space between the pieces of glass, so that there will be a space when it is finished firing. You can even leave several gaps in the finished product. If there are several holes, the piece can be worn at different angles to acquire a completely different look.
There are many ways of making a fused glass donut. Use some dichroic glass for a dazzling piece of dichroic glass jewelry. Return from Making a Fused Glass Donut to the homepage
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