A VIEW FROM THE SHOP: Crystal Fused Glass

Welcome to our ‘View from the Shop’, a monthly custom spotlight series presented  by the Hammerton design team. Each month we’ll give you a ‘first look’ of one or more recent custom projects hot off the shop floor, and share insights about our designs, fabrication processes, materials and more. 

We hope you enjoy this inside look at the work we do at Hammerton, and please tell us what you think!

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Broken glass never looked better.  We just finished up several fixtures for a large Park City home that makes ample use of a favorite diffuser medium we call ‘Crystal fused glass’. Despite the lofty name, this starts out simply as pieces of broken glass, or frit. The magic happens in the Hammerton glass studio where the frit is laid out on jigs in our kilns, fused together to create a sheet, slumped to form a shape, cold worked to smooth edges, and drilled to accommodate hardware — all by our skilled team of glass artisans.

The end result is a luminous material with a glistening crystal-like sheen and unique edge detail that diffuses light beautifully, layers well with other handcrafted media, and lends itself to a wide range of styles. Shown above is a custom 60″D two-tier drum chandelier combining Crystal fused glass with fine mesh and a rich Autumn Harvest mottled finish.

Several smaller fixtures designed for the same home — including the custom pendant and bowl fixture shown here — position Crystal fused glass center stage in clean-lined contemporary silhouettes, with hardware in a complementary Metallic Beige Silver finish.

Other custom fixtures completed for the same project lean toward a Craftsman-inspired aesthetic, like this lantern-style pendant shrouded in fine mesh and steel.

Shown here are a few other custom fixtures using Crystal fused glass, including a triple layer drum chandelier (above) and two cover sconces (below).

Several ceiling fixtures in the Hammerton catalog also feature Crystal fused glass in a range of styles, as shown below. Click on any image to  learn about the product.

Not surprisingly, Crystal fused glass fixtures have been tremendously popular for kitchen and bath applications. Here is one of our favorites:

See something of interest? Give your Hammerton representative a call!