Glass rods for beads making

COE 104:
Soft Glass
Moretti, Effetre,
Double Helix, Precision
COE 90
Bullseye Glass
for Fusing and Slumping
COE 33:
Hard Glass
Borosilicate Scott Clear Tubing and Rod,
Colored tubing and rod from Northstar, Alchemy, Momka and Trautman
(Symax, Kimble, Pyrex Style Glass)

What is COE? It is the abbreviation of Coefficient of Expansion, sometimes also called Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) and Liner Expansion Coefficient (LEC). The COE number indicates at what rate glass will expand when being heated. If you melt together pieces of glass with different COE's then your glass is unlikely to be compatible; tension might arise in your product resulting in breakage. Use glass with the same COE to increase compatibility likelihood for each project. There are other compatibility parameters within each COE, such as viscosity and annealing range. So it is important to keep a log of your compatibility errors with glass of the same COE, though generally most glass of the same COE will be nicely compatible. Lampworking, flameworking, and torchworking glass rods can also be used for kiln fusing onto flat glass sheets of similar compatibility.

See also: