Help with ashes in a glass gemstone!

Hi all!

I have a client who wants to incorporate their pets ashes into a bespoke order with me. This is great, however I have never worked with ashes before or even many gemstones. I have been doing a lot of research and can see some ideas of mixing ashes in with glass to make a glass gemstone. I roughly understand how to do this however, I would much prefer if someone has a suggestion of a maker who has much better experience with glass fusing than myself!!

Also, Is it possible to then cut this glass fused gemstone into a diamond cut...? Not sure if this is possible so thought I'd ask too!

Thanks for any help!

When this has cropped up here before, it has been dealt with by making a tube shaped pendant, sealing the ashes in it, and wearing it on a chain, as a necklace.
If you succeed in incorporating ashes in glass, how do you envisage using it? Maybe you will find the answer on a glass forum. Dennis

Hi Dennis, thanks for your message.

Ahhh okay, I was hoping to find out some more information about to set this either as a cabochon or a flush setting... and whether to know whether this was even possible to get glass cut in this way..? I have looked at a few glass forums but they don't seem to work and have an error opening certain pages!

Thanks

Well I have no personal experience of any of this, but:

For a first try, I would burn down some say chicken bone until I had enough to experiment with. Then I would try to incorporate it in some bottle glass. If this succeeded, go for the real thing.
I would mount the resulting button either by wire wrapping, or by bezel setting, flattening the base with diamond wheels if necessary. Both these processes can be found on YouTube.
Having it cut into a faceted shape might not be successful (if the bone causes weakness), or could be very expensive.
You would need to contact a gemstone lapidary service.

There is also no harm in trying to interest your client in a more conventional route as described in my first reply. Dennis.

There is quite a lot of business in memorial jewellery but I’ve only seen it with resin. It comes up occasionally in other forums but it’s usually passed on to someone with experience in the work

I've used resin before try the uv one its better you can polish it Attachment 13518Attachment 13519Attachment 13520

I would guess this could be easily achieved with lamp work. Small cabochons can be made on a cabochon mandrel and whilst the glass is hot a depression can be pushed into the centre of the glass to hold a small amount of ash and then caped with clear glass. You could try searching lamp work cabochon i’m not I’m not sure if you’d find ash inclusion but it would give you an idea about producing small handmade glass cabochons … good luck with it … Nick

There are lots of lampworkers who provide this service. Where abouts are you (just roughly) as I can probably recommend someone local if you don't want to have to rely on sending things through the post.

Beads tend to be more popular for this than cabs (mainly because of the grinding required on the latter), but both are possible. As a general rule, the molten glass is dipped into the ashes to incorporate them, which is a pretty straightforward process. The effect is slightly 'bubbly' and looks better in slightly larger pieces IMO.

Hi George,

Thanks for your help with this! I am down in east sussex along the coast! I have researched a few gemstone workers around but no one that can work with what I am looking for at the moment!

Would really appreciate any recommendations!

Thanks!

Bronte

The best options would probably be Sally Carver - https://www.evermoreglass.co.uk/about-us - or Scarlet Leonard - https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Scarlet...on_id=23034885 - I would happily recommend both of these artists, who are not only at the top of their game, but specialise in this sort of work.

Or you could contact one of the lampwork artists local to you who could help you to make your own piece. I'm not sure who is still offering tuition in your area, but I can message you with some names to check out if it helps.