If you are just starting out with making dichroic art glass jewelry or if you already have a studio and regularly make it, chances are you will need to find a good place to buy dichroic glass supplies. Oftentimes, if you are only making jewelry on a smaller scale, it is best to find a smaller supplier who is able to sell quality items in smaller batches rather than from a large company dealing in dichroic glass supplies.
One of the best things about buying from the small supplier is that you will be able to buy smaller pieces of dichroic glass, as opposed to having to buy an entire dichroic glass sheet. This type of glass is fairly expensive, and unless you are making enough jewelry to warrant buying big sheets of dichroic glass you really should shop around for the smaller suppliers.
Remember, each big sheet of glass is all the one similar color so you would have to produce a lot of jewelry to use up a big sheet. Most people find it more convenient, when shopping for dichroic glass supplies, to buy the smaller sheets thus availing themselves of more color and variety with the glass they buy.
If you can find a supplier that stocks not only different colored sheets, but also different patterns and textures that is best. Some retailers offer special ‘packs’ of five, ten or twenty sheets of 2 inch x 4 inch pieces of varying colors.
If you purchase a pack you usually cannot specify the actual color. If you want a specific color then you may need to buy a larger sheet of that one color. Packs vary in price according to texture and pattern, and number of pieces included, with the more standard sheets naturally being cheaper priced.
It is also often easy to buy scrap pieces of dichroic glass which is great for students, or those just starting to experiment with making this style of jewelry.
You may also need other dichroic glass supplies, not just the actual glass sheets. You will most likely need clasps, chains, frits, stringers and molds. Quite often, if you find a retailer online who stocks dichroic glass they will also sell the other dichroic glass accessories needed to actually go ahead and design and then assemble your jewelry pieces.
Prices for these accessories vary, depending on the quality of the items and what they are made from although you usually have a fairly good selection of items that you can choose from, depending on your budget and your particular needs.
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