Clean both sides of the glass by scrubbing with powdered cleanser (Comet, Ajax, etc.) Rinse well and dry with paper towel. After cleaning, handle glass by the edges only, or use paper towel. Fingerprints will show after firing.

Place glass over pattern. Any line design can be used as a pattern, even a page from a kid’s coloring book or we have 7 books of patterns available.

Shake the dropper tip bottle containing the Outline Black or Outline White. Screw the metal decorating tip over the plastic tip. Practice using the outliner on paper or scrap glass. When comfortable, outline the entire pattern. If necessary to stop before the outline is complete, cover the metal tip with a small piece of dampened paper towel and place the cover over all.

Add a signature if you wish using the outline color.

When outline is complete, rinse the tip and clean out with a stiff brush then affix it to a squeeze bottle containing water. A few squirts and it’s clean.

Place a few drops of the Medium out on a palette, depending on the amount of color you will use, add the powder and mix with palette knife until you have the thickness of cream. Add a drop or two of water to thin to whole milk consistency. Mixed colors should be thin enough to flatten out when applied to the glass. If the color is too thick and the brush marks do not smooth out, add another drop of water. You want the colors to flatten out to a smooth application. If colors tend to run when applied, add a bit more of the powder. Mix only what you will use in a days time and discard any that is left.

A 4 ounce bottle of Medium will mix 8 of the 27 gram jars and an 8 ounce bottle of Medium will mix a pint.

Use soft round brushes, usually a number 2 or number 4. Load brush fully and flow the color inside your outline. Allow color to "puddle" and push to outline using the point of the brush. Do not brush the color on the design. Glass can be raised slightly off the table to enable you to see if you are filling in the color evenly and touching the outline.

If you wish shading, simply flow on the first color, then add second color while first is still wet and "squiggle" or "pat" the two colors together. All colors can be mixed on the palette for new shades.

When design is complete, allow to dry. This usually takes about an hour.

Place painted side up on the sagger of your choice. Glass should be the same diameter as the sagger or a bit smaller, but never larger than the mold.

In a ceramic kiln equipped with a kiln setter, fire to cone 015 or 1525º. Leave peep holes closed during the firing. Vent lid a quarter inch during the entire firing and cooling cycle. These colors will actually mature at a cone 016 but in most kilns an 015 will give a much better surface. The Pumpkin and the Tomato requires a 015 firing to develop the color. This may require a bit of testing in your kiln.

Electronic kilns usually offer two options for firing. You can program them to fire to a specific cone at a medium speed or you can override this and use the ramp feature.
If you find programming for cone firing does not work on your kiln, use the ramp mode. (Check your manual for complete details on how to use this feature.) This will allow you to program to a certain temperature and “ramp” the rate up by so many degrees per hour. I would suggest that when firing single layer glass, you use 400º increase per hour to maturity with no hold (soak) time at the end of the firing cycle.

We suggest the following schedule when fusing two or more layers of float glass or when firing a fused piece for the second time. This is a very slow schedule and will enable gasses to escape to prevent bubbles, also it will prevent cracking in a second firing.

Firing segment #1 300F per hour hold at 500F for 10 minutes
#2 300F per hour hold at 900F for 10 minutes
#3 9999 per hour to 1480º
#4 Cool and hold at 900F for 5 minutes
#5 Cool at 250º per hour and hold again at 800º for 5 minutes
#6 Off

The above is offered as a suggestion, a starting point, and you will need to adjust for your kiln. Float glass will mature at 1450º in some kilns and need as much as 1550º in other kilns.

Glass Colors have a wide firing range, 1400º to 1800º. The upper end of this range is much hotter than glass can withstand, it will melt into a puddle!

We fire in a ceramic kiln equipped with a kiln setter, using a small 015 cone. Prop the lid of the kiln open 1/2 inch and turn all switches to low for 30 minutes. At the end of the 30 minutes, turn all switches to medium for another 45 minutes. At the end of this time, remove the prop and turn all switches to high. When firing is finished, allow kiln to cool naturally until the ware is cold.

*As you know firing temperature is governed by a combination of time and temperature and all kilns are different. Always use witness cones (shelf cones) to determine the actual temperature. Firing any material, especially glass, is an art. Age of the kiln and placement in kiln will effect the results. Top shelf is usually hotter than lower shelves.
If you are new to firing glass, we suggest that you experiment with undecorated glass and the sagger you intend to use before firing a decorated piece.
Do not remove glass until it is completely cool.

Metallic Colors
White Diamond, Gold Dust and Copper glow are new metallic colors. Mix, apply and fire the same as other colors in the line. These colors do not shine and they are opaque. Try mixing with any of the lead-free colors for a metallic sparkle, usually 1 part metallic to 3 parts color.

Gold Outlines
Unique Liquid Bright Gold can be substituted for the Black or White outliners.

1.  Fill the Gold Pen with a drop of liquid gold and complete pattern outlines.

2.  Clean pen with Lacquer Thinner.

3.  Allow outlines to dry before filling in the colors.

4.  Fire as usual.