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Slumping
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A method of shaping sheet or 'float' glass at lower temperatures in a kiln, in or over a mould.
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Fusing
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A method of heating the glass in a kiln until
it bonds or picks up the texture from the mould surface below. It takes place in the middle ranges of temperatures.
Enamel may be placed on the glass then heated until the medium it is in burns away and it adheres to or fuses with the surface underneath.
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Casting
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A generic name for a wide variety of techniques where
glass actually changes from a solid to a liquid state and flows into a mould. It iis done at the higher range of temperatures.
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Annealing glass
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The final process of cooling a completed glass object. This is a very important part of
glass making, because if the glass cools too quickly it will be strained and may break as it cools.
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Engraving glass
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The process of cutting into the surface of annealed glass using a carborundum wheel or diamond drill.
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Sand blasting
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A technique using an abrasive material that cuts into the glass surface, producing a design or pattern.
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Lens
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A ground or moulded piece of transparent optical material used to converge or diverge transmitted
light and to form images.
Using glass lenses, fired at high temperatures, convex mounds are created that reflect light
and enlarge inclusions under them, acting like a magnifying glass.
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Dichroic glass
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Originally created for the aerospace industry, the main characteristic of dichroic glass is that it has a
transmissive colour and a completely different reflective colour; these two colours shift depending on the
angle of view.
"The two-colour optical properties of dichroic glass result from micro-thin layers of metal oxides on the surface, which have a total thickness of 3 to 5 millionths of an inch.
They are produced by evaporation of multiple ultra-thin films of different metal oxides (gold, silver, titanium, chromium, aluminium, zirconium, magnesium, silicon) on to the surface of the glass in a vacuum chamber.
Dichroic glass can then be fused with other glass in multiple firings.
Certain wavelengths of light will either pass through or be reflected, resulting in a visible array of colour.
Due to variations in the firing process, individual results can never be reproduced exactly; each piece of fused dichroic glass is unique. (Information from Wikipedia)"
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