Fuming with Silver and Gold on Borosilicate glass

Fuming – This glass technique is one of the first basic techniques learned by a blower. It is very simple and silver is inexpensive for what it does. Gold is a little more costly, but it takes fuming to the next level.

Silver Fuming – The glass must be hot in order for the silver to stick to it.

First you must also have a rod of glass with a piece of silver on it. To do this you heat up the glass 5-10mm rod with a small small piece of silver cut and lay it on your graphite. I prefer about a 6mm piece of clear glass. If your silver does not stick the first time heat the glass up again and press on the silver until the silver sticks to the glass.

Now preheat your piece of glass using nearly any size tube or rod, you can even use dark colored glass. Make sure the glass you want to fume is hot. How I prefer to fume is turn my torch down to a small neutral almost reduction flame. Then I put the silver in there and it will start to smoke, but sometimes is splatters first. I do not like this unless I am using it for a special technique. So I let it splatter and once it does I then put my glassin the flame behind the silver I am fuming. Now you can do too much here, only cover it. If you do too much you can burn it off with an oxidizing flame. Fuming is all about the application. Once you have your glass fumed with silver you can do all sorts of things with it.

Gold Fuming – Gold takes fuming to the next level. Gold is best fumed on top of silver, I prefer just a slight silver fume under the gold. This also is what gets some super dope greens, what I just love! To get the gold to fume you need a little hotter more oxidizing flame than what was used for the silver. I use the same little flame for silver, just turn up the oxygen a little and it will get the gold hot enough to fume. Once you have the glass fumed you can sleeve it, draw clear lines or dot it up. You can also fume the outside or inside of the glass. Both give amazing and unique effects. Did you know at a microscopic level gold is red. The first nano technology was done by a glass artists many many moons ago.

Watch our videos on this as well

What is Fuming