There are so many beautiful types of glass to fuse with and Royal Glass is no exception. This glass has a beautiful nature print impressed in the glass and is layered with a coating of metallic enamel. It comes in several different colors, and more combinations of color palettes become possible depending on what color background you fuse the Royal Glass to. Although it seems at first glance this glass needs little work to use and have it look great, in my experience that has not really been the case.

This one crucial step takes an eternity, and it’s one of the few things I find about my job that seems grueling, but it really brings this glass to life. I lightly sand the enamel on the glass to bring out the detail of the pattern – that’s easy. But then I take an x-acto and etch the enamel off the pattern to really bring out the print once the glass is fused. One 4×4 inch piece of Royal Glass can take me two hours or more to finish etching. It is a lot of extra time for prep on a piece of glass pre-firing, but it’s well worth it. This gives me more contrast between the colors of a piece, and certainly makes the image in the piece hold your attention longer. It’s not that this step is so hard, but it does take caring. Otherwise mid way through etching the piece you’ll get tired and start scraping enamel off willy nilly in a rush, and it will not look great. I’ve done it, and you can tell.