@Photomancer was sitting here in Common with a bunch of fused glass pendants. They are pretty cool. I have heard that the dichroic bits are the most expensive part of these.
So – what would we need to do to make our own dichroic? I have a vague notion that it involves fuming things in a vacuum…
I think it can be made with either vacuum deposition or sputtering. It is something that I think science has talked about setting up the equipment to do. But it isn’t an easy process to get dialed in. I think due to yield, and optimization issues of getting your expensive materials where you want them, and just the cost of getting set up, a DIY approach is likely more expensive than the commercial materials.
I was told there’s a dichroic manufacturer in Austin, the on site prices are so cheap it’s supposed to be well worth the field trip compared to a place like Delphi
This needs to be a DMS field trip.
I have a weakness for dichroi glass I hate to make it up
in pieces to sell because I don t want to part with it
A low tech method is evaporative vapor deposition where the material is heated up to boiling near by the object to be deposited on. This takes place in a vacuum and can be accomplished simply with a bell jar and vacuum pump. (+ power supply and baseplate with electric feedthroughs ex. sparkplugs)
I love dichroic glass, too. Furthermore, my brother lives in Leander outside of Austin and not too far from Austin Thin Films. Maybe I need to make a trip to go see him:grinning:
Yes. I just got off the phone and they’re setting up an account for me. They do take orders over the phone.
They actually sell the film so we can fuse it onto regular glass and make our own from regular scraps. It can be cut with frigging scissors…mind blown.
Wow !!! that is great news We are really going to have some fun
This may be another source for your various glass needs (a good friend of mine has an account with hollander glass and goes to Houston once a month for glass-for his stained glass company)
Dan - you might like the stained glass options as well.
Thanks for the tip. I think I looked into a DMS discount there last year. I think all we have to do is fill in the paperwork for a non-profit organization.
If DMS qualifies for this let me know. I need to take the kids to Houston anyway and I’d love to fit this in.
I never followed through as they wanted an officer of the corporation as I recall to sign off on an application. I was teaching stained glass at DMS at the time and thought it would be cool to buy glass at a very reasonable cost. I just dropped the whole idea though when it got to be more trouble than I wanted to mess with. I also lost interest in teaching stained glass about the same time.
Sorry Julie, someone would have to follow up with them again as I kind of just dropped the ball.
Dan,
I can ask my stained glass fabrication guy if he would be willing to pickup items from Hollander on his future trip or trips to Houston for materials. He makes it a family visit when he goes for a stock order.
That might be cool. Let’s discuss next time we’re at DMS together. We should also loop in the fired arts folks with their new glass efforts.
Ask him about teaching too?