Q.  What is dichroic glass?
A.  Dichroic glass is glass containing a multitude of layers of various metal oxides which give the glass dichroic optical properties.  It was originally developed by NASA for the aerospace industry, for use in satellite optics and spacesuit visors, but is now also available to glass artists from dichroic coating manufacturers.  The color of a dichroic pendant will shift, depending on your angle of view.  It can be highly textured, which is the kind I use for my pendants, or flat and/or patterned.

Q.  How secure is the silver wrap around the perimeter?
A.  Very.  After the pendant has been fired ("fused") and wrapped with silver, it is fired again.  The silver shrinks slightly around the glass (8-10%), thereby becoming fully secured.  Of course, if you choose to have the full silver wrap, this is a moot point.

Q.  Will my pendant break if I drop it?
A.  As with all jewelry, you must take care of it, and if you drop it just right on a hard enough surface, it could crack or break.  But you'd have to pretty much throw it down hard and want to break it.  However, fused glass is "tempered" glass, meaning its strength is 10,000 psi.  Normal, everyday household concrete is usually only 2,500 psi, with industrial strength psi being 5,000 and up.  Tempered/fused glass has several times the strength of ordinary concrete and twice the strength of what is considered "industrial" concrete.  Also, when fully-tempered glass breaks, the glass fractures into small, relatively harmless fragments, which greatly reduces injury to people as there are no jagged edges or sharp shards.

Q.  Will you engrave?
A.  Not at this time.  Possibly in the future.  However, you can purchase a fully-wrapped pendant and have it engraved later.

Q.  How is it possible that no two pendants are alike?
A.  Due to the basic nature and pattern of dichroic glass, you could make 20 cuts off one strip of dichro, all of them the same shape and angled the same way, and you'll still end up with 20 different, distinct pendants, no matter how hard you try to make them the same (it's impossible).  Each cut piece has its own identity and look.  Where it ends up lying in the kiln can also greatly affect how the glass softens, anneals, and then re-hardens during the cooling process.  I should also add that I do retain a certain amount of artistic discretion.  While you choose whether you want a total silver wrap or just around the perimeter, I will create the design.  I won't know how I'm going to wrap your pendant until it is sitting in front of me after the second firing.

Q.  In some of the pendant photos, I can't see any cremains.  Why is that?
A.  Because I've recently acquired some new types of dichroic glass and haven't used them yet for cremains.  I merely made some pendants so I could take photos for my website and offer you a wider range of choices.  As time goes on, I'll update my photos.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me or keep checking back.  As new questions come in and are answered, I'll add them to my FAQs page.