A Differnt Kind of Piece

Ok, so there's this really great stuff out there for glass artists called fiber board. I like a particular brand of the stuff, Kaiser Lee board, because it lasts forever and carves up especially well. Anyway, the reason this stuff is so awesome is that it reacts to the heat of the kiln the same way the glass does. So you can completely encase it with glass. While the glass would crack if it were put over a ceramic or steel form, when you put glass over this fiber board stuff, it doesn't crack.

This means you can do some neat stuff. You can create your own molds, which is very nice, and, you can use those molds in ways you can't use regular molds. Here's a piece I made with this board, with a reactive glass:


With this piece, I've used a base blue glass. The blue glass reacted with the oxygen in the kiln, and any place where it was not covered with the clear glass overlay, it turned silver. It looks like steel - which is very cool. I've never gotten that kind of reaction out of a piece of glass before!

Now the clear glass is draped over the sides of the Kaiser Lee board, and in four corners, actually rested against the bottom of the kiln. I was actually amazed when I pulled this out the first time - I thought for sure it would crack. I actually threw it in the dishwasher to make sure, and it's dishwasher safe!