The Pattern Bar Technique

Using the Pattern Bar Technique to Achieve Spectacular Designs

The pattern bar technique takes fused glass to new heights, bringing new possibilities to your glass designs. As you’ll learn, the pattern bar technique takes advantage of glass art’s unique capacity to retain color and style variations as it melts. A great pattern bar design is a careful calculation of how a patterned tile will melt into your chosen mold.

Assembly: Playing with Geometric Forms

Arranging your layered pieces is perhaps the most important thing to consider when applying the pattern bar technique.

By fusing layers of glass together and cutting them into even pieces, a glass artist can use the evenly sized pieces in repeating patterns that liquify into fascinating geometric forms. Because the pieces can vary, repeat, and layer in an infinite number of ways, there are endless possibilities for this particular technique.

Any single arrangement of flat shapes can melt in a variety of ways depending on the type of mold you select, you can get plenty of creative mileage out a single pattern bar.

We recommend that you design them in bulk and experiment away!

Some Helpful Tips for Creating Your Tiles

If you choose to design your own bars, there are a few important considerations to make note of:

Ceramic dams and kiln bricks are essential for customizing the shape of your pattern bars. You can find crucial kiln furniture and more on our site.
When creating your own glass pattern bars, you’ll want to use plenty of kiln paper to keep the glass from sticking to your ceramic dams. We carry a variety of brands and sizes of kiln paper to fit your needs.
To keep your kiln paper from falling down the side of your ceramic dams, a bit of glue may help.

Considerations When Fusing Pattern Bar Tiles

At last, your tiles are ready. Now the fun begins! For those of you working with pattern bars for the first time, here are some useful tips.

As always, you’ll want to make sure that all facets of your pattern bars are compatible.
The more uniform your tiles are, the better especially if you’re designing an intricate product.
As stated in the video, make sure you use sufficient glass for your mold!

Have a pattern bar creation you’d like to share with us? We’d love to see it. Feel free to post all of your creations on our Facebook page!