Add an accent color and functionality to a soap dish with fusible rods.
We paired Robin’s Egg Blue Opalescent with Driftwood Gray rod, but you could use any combination.
Steps
- Fuse a 10.5 × 15.5 cm piece of Robin’s Egg Blue on a base of 3mm Clear.
- Tack fuse texture with Driftwood Gray rods—choose from two ways:
Rods for Dots
• Make dots by snipping rod into 8-10mm lengths, standing the pieces on end on either a primed shelf or ThinFire (which we especially like for opals). Fire as fast as possible to 1500°F (816°C) for 20 minutes and crash cool.
• Clean and arrange dots in the center of the fused blank.
• We tack fused this piece at 1375°F. Remember to anneal for twice the thickness of the thickest area, following the Annealing Thick Slabs Chart.
Rods for Ridges
• Cut lengths of rod and arrange them on the blank. Use GlasTac Gel (008234) sparingly.
• We tack fused this piece at 1400°F, again with an annealing cycle for twice the thickness of the thickest area. This higher temperature softens the cut ends of the rod and tacks them securely to the base. - Slump into Soap Dish Mold (008981). The heatwork of this slump firing maintains the tack-fused texture. Again, we anneal for twice the thickness of the thickest area.
Supplies
Sepia-hued areas of Petrified Wood strike with varying opacity and colors. Play up this organic effect with various grain sizes of Clear Frit. We used Coarse and Extra Large. The frit rounds out and sinks in, creating shallow pools.
- Clear, Double-rolled Sheet Glass (001101-0030)
- Driftwood Gray Rod (000132-0576)
- Soap Dish Mold (008981)
- GlasTac Gel (008234)
