01.
Decals Printed & Cut
After the success of larger designs like the owls and eyeglasses plates, I thought I’d see if the decals would hold up to some finer printing. I chose portions of the score for Handel’s Messiah (the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices).
02.
Vanilla vs. White
I’m actually testing two things in these first two coasters. On the left I’m using French Vanilla (000137) as the base for the decal. On the right I’m using Dense White (00313). Both are 3mm thick. On the left I’ve used a bolder version of the staff lines, notes, and text. As a result, it also has less music.
03.
Closeups
Here you can see the difference between the two. Also, in the glare, you can see how well the sticker has adhered to the glass, even taking on its texture.
04.
Fused
Although I don’t have a closeup of the bolder version on French Vanilla at left, I decided that I liked the version on Dense White at right since the text held up just fine and there’s more music.
05.
More Coasters
Although it’s not too important on small pieces of glass (the coasters are 4×4″), I decided to powder the rest with clear fine glass powder to reduce the chance of bubbles. Since the tops of the coasters are all capped with a 3mm layer of clear glass, there’s a chance that bubbles will form between the two layers.
06.
Fused the Rest
The rest of the coasters have fused, and that’s the end of this project!
Results
Final Result
This was a fun project from start to finish: from looking through the entire score of Handel’s Messiah, to making decals, to having an entire set of five coasters (each with a different section of the score). I think I’ll have to do another musical piece next.
Close-up
Hallelujah indeed.
FULL FUSING SCHEDULE (RUN TIME 9:31, 15.5 kWh)*
| SEGMENT | RATE (deg F / hour) | TEMPERATURE (F) | HOLD (hours:minutes) |
| 1 | 300 | 1125 | :15 |
| 2 | 100 | 1225 | :15 |
| 3 | AFAP | 1490 | :10 |
| 4 | AFAP | 900 | 1:00 |
| 5 | 100 | 700 | OFF |
* The firing schedules may be designed for other projects that were fired with this one. Everything was fired in a Paragon GL-22AD.