This post written by Mary Young

Metal Inclusion Projects

Lori & I both took Roy Kapp’s class on metal inclusions, having had very mixed success with metal inclusions with our glass (lots of large bubbles!). We were so impressed by his class and his teaching style that Lori has talked to him about coming to SLC to offer a couple of workshops next spring. So, we won’t reveal all his secrets.

Roy is the lead instructor for Delphi Glass Company (www.delphiglass.com) and you can catch his many tutorials online and at Delphi’s website. Roy was also the creator and continues to be the sole manufacturer of Delphi’s Royal Glass (search on the Delphi website for this), which he makes in his basement. This stuff is made with mica coatings and is just beautiful (albeit a bit pricy).

Royal Glass Sample

Roy taught us techniques for fusing metal between two pieces of glass as well as above glass and below sheets of glass. We learned about the importance of using pure metal (using found objects can be a bit chancy), taking advantage of reactive glasses, techniques for minimizing bubbles, and getting different results from the same metals. We played with gold and silver leaf, copper and bronze sheets (cut and punched out), heavy aluminum foil, and learned his heavily guarded secret of how to keep copper looking like copper after it’s fused (don’t even bother to ask—take the class!).

Silver Wire on Reactive GlassBronze dragonflies in clear

Roy is a very entertaining instructor—light-hearted, very knowledgeable, sharing, and enthusiastic. He likes to experiment (much like our master experimenter, Jodi)—when told he couldn’t fire a rock in his kiln (‘it’ll explode!!!’), he had to try it, after engineering some safeguards to prevent kiln damage. Sign up for his workshop to hear what became of the rock (and the kiln)…

 

Mary YoungThis post was written by Mary Young. When Mary isn’t making glass, she makes the worlds most delicious chocolates! Mary also serves as the Guild Secretary.