Jig for Cutting Fiber Paper Strips

cutting fiber paper for fused glass damming

When I get going in the studio on a strip cut design, the last thing I want to do is stop and cut up fiber paper strips. The fiber paper strips are necessary when damming pieces that might spread. Most of my strip pieces are 6 mm and don’t spread much. I do, however, like to include pattern bars from flow slabs or pot melts. These are often a tad higher than 6 mm. Damming the piece as they are full fused together helps keep everything tidy and neat.

Today I took the time to cut some strips to have on hand ready when I need them. The easiest and quickest way I have found to do this is to set up my Morton Board with a cutting mat. Conventional wisdom says to cut the strips just short of the height of the finished piece; in this case 5mm. The idea is that the top will round over some and not require as much cold working. Well, the jury is still out on this. While it sounds good in theory, I have found this to be not all that helpful. I usually flip and fire my strip pieces again because in most cases I prefer the crisp straight lines that you get from the shelf side of the piece. In that case, the rounding doesn’t matter. I also find that there is some puckering that happens on the edges as they round over. It requires quite a bit of cold working. All that to say that in my experience if you cut the strips to the same size as the finished piece it would work just as well… maybe better.

fused glass strip cut

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