Friday Night Fusing Clinic
January 12th, 2007 ... Glow in the Dark Powders (and GlassLine Paints)
Glow in the Dark powders are very similar to mica powders. They are a non-glass inclusion that does not melt into the glass. It has to be capped to keep it in place. It does have a tendency to cause large air bubbles around itself if escape routes are not left for the air to get out. A bit of clear frit in the corners helps the cap layer to stay up around the outer edge, giving air time to clear out before the cap layer seals around the glow powder.
There are 2 types we experimented with. GeoSoul's Aqua Glow on an Orange base glass, and an F1 powder that had a green glow. It works best when applied very thinly. A few of the pieces had larger bubbles from too much glow powder been applied. If you do get a large bubble, you can try to pop the glass at the top of the bubble and drain out any loose powder to reuse it.
Glassline paints were brought up as a possible vehicle for the glow powders. As we do stock this product, why not try it out? That is the whole idea of these sessions, lots of people tossing out ideas. It didn't seem to work that well as a vehicle for the glow powders, but a lot of people hadn't seen this product before. It was first introduced to us last year at Hot Glass Horizons by Patty Gray. You can put a few drops on a layer of clear, then squish it with a cap layer of clear, and rotate it 90 degrees. Then separate and stick both coloured pieces to fresh clean clear layers, or leave as is. It comes in a set of 14 different colours.
Liquid Stringer Medium was also suggested as a vehicle for glow powder. LSM does require mixing water with the frit, and the glow powder does not react well with water. We did have one example of having tried LSM with glow powder and no water, but it was very coarse and rough. It still glowed nicely, but did not look or feel good to the touch.
