Dichroic effects

[YoYoSpin]

I love the look of dichroic glass for it's 3-D depth and intense colors. And after a lot of experimentation, I think I've recreated the look in polyester resin. These bottle stoppers are the first of my new "Dichroic EPR" (Ed's Poly Resin) series. This process is probably not appropriate for pen blanks â€" since to get the dichroic effect, a good part of the blank has to be transparent. Hope you like them.

 

[mrcook4570]

Beautiful stuff Ed. Any chance you will be selling some of these?

 

[BRobbins629]

Very nice. These look great - I've been wondering how to use dichroic glass in a pen - was thinking of somehow incorporating into the cap or centerband, and have some ideas for a tubeless pen that may work for this, but have yet to come up with a good idea for the pieces I have. Looks like you've done well in PR.

 

[jkoehler]

Ed,
these are great looking stoppers.
What are the chances that you are going to be selling some of these?

 

[johncrane]

very impressive ED! I don't no how you find the time to do every thing ED! you must have a 8 day week [?][]

 

[gerryr]

The first one is really impressive. Outstanding.

 

[woodwish]

Those are nice Ed. I'm usually not a fan of PR but those are rather excpetional compared to many I have seen. I recently bought a glass kiln and have been messing around some with fusing glass and some "real" dichroic glass. Delphi recently began marketing "dichroic paper", a very thin paper-like form of dichroic glass. It may have some future in pens just due to its thin backing compared to the usual stuff. I got into glass fusing to make some kaliedoscope ends (which is working nicely) but I have begun to think about other things. Like fused dichroic glass cabechons for bottle stoppers and other projects. Just haven't had time to get any completely finished yet, trying to find the 8th day of each week to get it all done. [8D]

 

[YoYoSpin]

Thanks everyone...to answer the question on sales of these stopper blocks - anyone who's interested, please send me an email

Ray, I was going to pursue exactly the same thing - buying a fusing kiln and making D-glass cabochons. But who needs another hobby, not to mention where would I but more stuff in my shop! So I'm hoping that this dichroic EPR keeps me busy for a while.

 

[Ligget]

Ed your work is outstanding as always, I think these new blanks with sell really well![][]

 

[ed4copies]

"Dichroic" defines a very specific type of glass, as you know, Ed. Adding what appears to be "glitter" to Polyresin will give a very interesting effect, however, I would avoid using the term "dichroic", since the glass industry MAY become snotty about copyrights and accuracy.

Just a word of advice, worth every penny you paid for it.
[][]

 

[YoYoSpin]

At $90 for 16 grams (about $50 an ounce), the dichroic additive is a little different than glitter.

Actually, the word dichroic is generic and defined as the property of having more than one color. The word is not trademark-able or copywrited, so there shouldn't be any problems...but thanks for the advice, Ed.

 

[DFM]

But there may be a trademark associated with the term...

 

[ed4copies]

1 ounce = 28.35 grams

May be helpful in computing cost.
A problem I often encounter as well.

 

[YoYoSpin]

You can do a trademark search on any word or group of words by clicking here: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=5ju0g2.1.1

The word "dichroic" has been in the public domain for many years, is considered a generic term and thus is not trademark-able. If you do a search on "dichroic", you'll see that two companies have attempted to trademark the word in combination with other words (DICHROIC THEATRE and DICHROIC FILTER ARRAY), both of which were abandoned for reasons stated above.

This reminds me of a trademark dispute on the word yo-yo that went on for over 30 years...Duncan had trademarked the term yo-yo back in the 1930’s after they bought the rights from Pedro Flores (a Philippine immigrant who worked as a bellhop at a San Francisco hotel â€" and is the person who brought the “modern†yo-yo to the USA). For the next 30 years or so, all other yo-yo manufacturers were forced to use other names to describe their product, like “Spinnerâ€, “Bandalor†and “Topâ€. Then in the 1960†the courts tossed Duncan’s trademark out, under the grounds that it was a common word, used as a generic term by the general public...interesting story.

 

[Paco]

Very nice!