As long as the piece you want is small you can fuse all sorts of things. Earlier in the year we had visitors who brought a bottle of wine with them. Nothing unusual about that. But the wine was wrapped in fine gold coloured wire. My visitor suggested that I try fusing that!. Well, with a lot of trepidation I sandwiched a coil of wire between two pieces of glass, blue underneath and clear on the top, and put it in the kiln. After the normal heating time the coil was still visible and the glass about to fuse. After another minute it was completely transformed. The wire must have started to melt forming bubbles with the piece and the effect was lovely. It looks quite Victorian.
After that I tried fusing other metals with glass, with some succeses and some failures (situation normal!). If I overcooked a piece like the one above the wire comes through the glass and can be quite sharp.
This is a piece before it is fused. There is aluminium foil scrunched up between the glass pieces. I also tried gold foil.
These are the results. The white piece was slightly overcooked so the big bubble on the top is close the breaking through the glass. The aluminium foil discoloured but the gold foil was fine.
All good clean fun.
Jane
Cosy Creative Crafts 