DragonJools

CiM 104 Ruby Slippers

2012-01-26T23:28:00.000-05:00

Two more transparent reds - Ruby Slippers and Crimson - from CiM - and I struggled with these. I don't know what it was - but I could NOT get Ruby Slippers to strike.

Transparent reds are striking colours - they lose their colour when heated to molten - and then you let them cool, and re-introduce them to the flame, and the "strike" - regaining their red colour. Generally - I have no problems with the transparent reds.

But not these two. I had the same problem with both Ruby Slippers and Crimson. I don't know if it was me or the glass. I did try both of them on the same day - for what ever that is worth.

Other testers for Ruby Slippers report results from difficulty striking to a "glorious, garnet red."

From the left, we have Ruby Slippers on white, on clear, and two self coloured beads. The end one (yellow) - was clear when it went into the kiln. Maybe they needed to kiln strike.

Again - Ruby Slippers, and I was definitely having trouble striking it. It was also hazing up on me. The haze has come out sort of a muddy colour.

Although - if you wanted to do something with a variegated yellow and orange - this might be just exactly what you are looking for.

Wave bead

2012-01-24T23:08:00.000-05:00

Random eye candy - here's one of my signature "wave" beads - done in "Earth" and Eff. Med Lapis. It is done on the Sirius system mandrel and insert.

It doesn't showcase the "Earth" well - but it's bluuuue. How bad can it be? ;-)

CiM 102: Valentine Revisited

2012-01-22T22:53:00.002-05:00

I wanted to revisit CiM Valentine - as I had this nagging sense that I just hadn't done it justice.

After all - I really like it - and I was wondering why the photos seemed so dark and dreary.

So I remade the beads - and here you see, from the left, two self coloured beads, one encased in clear, and one with white dots with Valentine on top.

Boy - those are not what you would call red.

I tried them under various lights around my studio - and finally - I took them outside to shoot - which I almost never do.

et Voila! Despite superiour lighting technology - this colour pops in overcast and bright sunlight - revealing it's true redness.

BTW - the encased one - while looking lighter than the un-encased red - has not cracked. (Opaque reds frequently are fussy about being encased.) It's not a real deep encasing - but there it is.

So there you go - shoot your Valentine in the sun.

Make what you will of the symbolism in that! ;-)

Gas Terminology Translation

2012-01-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

Around the world - different terms get used for the gas we use to run our torches - so here's a little clarification as I understand it - mostly for my European readers - who are often baffled by our terminology.

In North American (Canada and the US) - we mostly run our torches on Propane or Natural Gas.

For those in Europe who are wondering what the heck natural gas is: Natural Gas is a piped gas - part of the utilities (like water and electricity) - and not necessarily available outside of major urban centres. It is about 90% methane.

Butane is what we fuel cigarette lighters with. Also - some of the small torches for brazing and soldering run on butane.

Propane is sold in tanks, or delivered to large tanks for those using it - mostly in more rural areas - for home heating, cooking or industrial applications.

Propane is stored as a liquid in the tank, and what you are burning is the vapor as the gas evaporates. (But is sold in pounds - i.e. a 20 lb tank.)

Propane burns at about 50 degrees F hotter than natural gas - which doesn't sound like much.

But - my experience is - you can melt the glass a lot faster with propane than natural gas. The propane makes, for want of better terminology, a "denser" flame - it seems to transfer the heat more efficiently. The difference, all else being equal - is quite dramatic.

I also have experienced far less problems in "scorching" or "burning" the glass when working low in the flame with propane than natural gas. I can work far closer to the torch face with propane than with natural gas. If I get down close to the candles (those blue fingery parts of the flame coming directly off the torch face) - with natural gas, I'm more inclined to get grey smokey effects in the glass.

I have certainly heard some lampworkers comment about being careful of propane because of built up of contaminents in the tanks and hose - and it may have been in the past that the quality control for propane was not as good - but I have never had a problem personally.

Propane is scented to make it easy to find leaks - the resulting scent is very distinctive - I find it nauseating - but you should never smell it - the burn from the torches is very clean.

One other thing to remember - propane is heavier than air, so if it spills, it will sink to the ground. When you plan your studio space - think about this. So, if you are setting up in a basement - look for floor drains. Leaked gas could conceivably "fall" to the floor, flow into the drain and accumulate. If there is an electric sump pump in the drain to keep the water levels down, when it starts - electric motors can spark and "whomp" - potential for explosion. (Natural Gas is neutral - it just mixes.)

Likewise - look around for gas-fueled furnaces, water heaters, with a pilot light.

Some of the smaller, portable torches like the Hot Head and the Fireworks will run on a MAPP gas canister - for as long as those continue to be available. (They are being phased out here). MAPP gas is a propane blend - it has added ingredients to make it burn hotter. Mostly it gets sold in small containers for light welding and soldering and hooking up to portable equipment, like camping stoves. (They will also run on propane.)

I don't pretend to be an expert on this - just throwing some info out there for you to think about. If you want an expert - read Vic Henley's articles in the glass community magazines.

Oh, which do I prefer? Propane - I would rather melt with propane - but natural gas has the advantage of being delivered in a pipe directly to your studio and you never run out.

Well - that turned into a sort of brain dump - hope someone finds it helpful though. ;-)

PS - if you have some info about the gas used in your country - leave a comment!

Glow Frit

2012-01-19T00:25:00.000-05:00

I did some experimenting with a stash of glow frit that I recently came across.

The instructions said to make stringer from the frit, so I did that.

To do this, (make stringer from frit, that is) - start with a rod of clear glass and a heat the end of the clear until you have softened the end, then use it to pick up a chunk of frit on the end rod. Bring that back to the flame and heat it to soften it, and then pick up another chunk of frit and melt it in Keep repeating this, until you have a nice sized gather - big enough to pull into a stringer. Repeat as necessary for more stringers as required.

For this first bead, I started with a clear core, then added the glow frit-stringer, and then encased with CiM Caribbean, and then shaped into a cube.

You can see I burned something - not sure if it was the clear or the frit or the Caribbean - but ick.

However, this is it glowing! Nice glow, eh? Really quite dramatic.

Next - I tried a marble. This time, instead of the stringer, I just got a big ball of clear hot, and jammed it down into the frit and picked up a big chunk, and then just worked around it, encasing it, adding dichro, etc.

I trapped a lot of air in there, inadvertently, by doing it that way - but I did get a nice, substantial chunk of frit.

Resulting in this marble - when you turn out the lights! The frit was labelled blue - hence the blue glow.

The glow effect is quite strong, and yes - like every other glow-in-the-dark thing that is not actively radio-active - you have to "charge" it up under a strong light.

But I tell you - two of us in the bathroom - with the lights out - (at the studio) - squealing like schoolgirls - totally made one customer's day. ;-)

Gas Consumption - Nortel Torches

2012-01-17T14:30:00.001-05:00

Currently in the process of re-design the studio for beadFX - where I teach - as they are moving to a new location - which is one of the reasons I've been very quiet lately. (The other has to do with my mother being ill - but that's another story.)

So - trying to figure out how big a gas line we need. We're going with Natural Gas (again) - and I got the following figures from Peter at Nortel Mfg - so I thought I would publish them here - in case someone else needs them, or I need them at some point in the future.

For Natural Gas
Mega & Minor Torch - at 1/4 psi, uses 3 litres per minute

Midrange Torch - at 1/4 psi, uses 8 litres per minute

Usage increases with psi increase - possibly up to 50% more.

BTUs - calculate at 35 btus/litre.

This is the info I fed to the gasfitter - got it straight from Peter.

Just don't ask me to explain it! ;-)

CiM 203 Pimento Ltd Run

2012-01-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

Pimento - from Creation is Messy - a vibrant, eye-popping orange.

This is a happy, happy colour. - bright and cheery and in-your-face saturated!

This is also a really soft opaque - this melted very fast.

Here are two self-coloured spacers.

This one had dots of a light turquoise (CiM Fremen) - you can see there has been a reaction and there is a handsome dark grey line around the Fremen.

This is encased in clear - and is slightly lighter in real life than the un-encased versions - although it is tough to see that here. By the way - that is pretty normal for encased opaque oranges and reds - to show lighter.

And with ivory dots. A real creamsicle colour combo. Hmmm - ivory core beads with an encased of Pimento, (with the core showing at the sides - like a white heart bead) - nummy.

A really cheerful colour. Love this one.

Beaded Laughter Blog

2012-01-02T12:30:00.001-05:00

You have to check out this blog - www.beadedlaughter.blogspot.com

Too funny!

Happy New Year.

CiM Purple Haze

2011-12-26T11:13:00.001-05:00

CiM Purple Haze - over silver foil. Now THIS shines!

This was a core of something dark - I thought it was black but I see a little blue - so I think it might be indigo or one of the dark colours that I have tested recently.

A layer of silver foil, and then encased. This is photo'd in cool light. You can see where the Purple Haze has reacted with the silver to turn golden, in some places more than others.The overall effect is a antiquey gold on gold look.

Here it is again,in warm light - the golden effect is still there, but now it is more of a pink and gold.

Purple Haze over Silver Foil - WIN!

TAG Tibet - Opaque vs Clear

2011-12-24T00:51:00.000-05:00

Tibet, from Trautman Art Glass - is "a transparent version of Dalai Lama" - according to their website. So imagine my surprise when the latest batch that I picked up was opaque in the unworked rod.

The opaque variation is significantly easier to strike!

Here we have, the Tibet (Opaque) on the left of the black line, with significantly more colours - and Tibet (Clear rod) on the right.

Same bead, different side.

All of these are the Tibet-clear rod, and encased. The two on the left just would not strike. The two on the right struck - but I'm not that enamored of the colour.

These four are the Tibet-opaque - you can see that I had a lot more success with these! These are also all encased.

Here we have, three on the right that are the Tibet - opaque, and the two on the left, were a mix of the clear and opaque. All are encased.

I'm gonna scoop up all of this batch I can get my hands on - it is waaaay nicer to work.

TAG Dalai Lama vs Dalai Lotus

2011-12-22T00:29:00.000-05:00

In my latest bundle of TAG glass - something labeled Dalai Lotus.

Here is the same bead - showing all sides. The Dalai Lama is on the left, the Dalai Lotus on the right. They seem fairly similar, except their seems to be some purples and reds in the D. Lotus on one side. Given the vast range of colours in these glasses - it's fair to say that one bead does not a test make. ;-)

Either glass sure is impressive though!

BTW - that is a band of black separating the two colours - simply for reference purposes.

These are all Dalai Lotus, encased.

And this is the Dalai Lama - encased.

Ain't this a beauty? It started as three beads side by side (Tibet - clear) - which got away from me, so I filled in with Dalai Lama, added a few trails of Triton, and encased it and marvered it.

Here you can see what was where.

This was similar - but mashed. Never got this one to strike to my satisfaction, however.

Some days - the glass just sings for you. On those days - just work until you drop. ;-)

CiM 602 Purple Haze Ltd Run

2011-12-20T23:47:00.000-05:00

CiM calls Purple Haze "a transparent that shifts between blue and lavendar, depending on the lighting." Effetre makes a colour like that - but it is totally unlike this colour.

In the world of commercially made beads - fire-polish, pressed glass, and crystal, this colour is generally called "Alexandrite."

It can look like this. (Photo copyright beadFX Inc - all rights reserved, used with permission).

However, for me, the Purple Haze does not show blue in fluorescent light, but rather a light grey. I dunno - mebbe I smoked it. (Maybe they will look better off the mandrel and cleaned?)

Here it is in warm light - it is a much redder purple than the Effetre 080 and 081 - Light and Dark Lavender.

Here is the Purple Haze - shown with a bracelet made up of a mix of glasses, but with quite a bit of the Effetre Lavendar (Colour shifting).

Here it is again in fluorescent light. The red arrows note the same bead, you can see that the change is quite dramatic.

Anyway, the cool light/blue phase of this glass - doesn't look light blue to me. The warm light - reddish purple pink colour is pretty enough though.

CiM 102 Valentine

2011-12-18T23:44:00.000-05:00

Here's another of the new reds from CiM. CiM calls Valentine "a saturated and bright opaque red."

It is a bright red in very strong light. It has a tendency to look dull though, if the light isn't strong enough, and it is difficult to photograph accurately.

See - here we have two self-coloured beads. In real-life, you can practically smell the cherry-pie filling - but here - they look dark and gloomy.

This is a very thin layer over clear - and it reads as a transparent.

And Valentine as dots on white - notice that it looks like a super-dense transparent here.

Here - I tried photographing it in different lighting conditions. This isn't too bad.

This is right up close under the incandescent desk light.

And this one I colour corrected manually - it looks reasonably right on my monitor - your mileage may vary.

It is easy to strike. Like I said - it is a nice colour in person - cherry pie filling red - but hard to shoot - so if you do a lot of etsy or ebaying - be prepared to tear your hair out!

Effetre Earth - Yet Again

2011-12-14T22:15:00.000-05:00

I apparently can't let this one go - although I am starting to suspect that some rods are more inclined to do funky things than others.

To recap - this is a new colour that the colour paddle on the Frantz website indicates should look like this:

And I tend to get results more like this. I love the streakiness - but I want that ^. Big patches of turquoise.

These two - I tried reducing. Meh. I did switch to the Mega for a more focused flame.

Aha! Much more interesting. This is a hollow - built the disks up slowly - then pushed them together using the star mashers. Very effective way to make a hollow quickly, btw. Much faster than building up over the centre.

OK - I cheated - the ivory makes a really strong reaction that is amazing and awesome.

Check out that dragonfly green on the end - that's Triton, reduced. Never had it go that colour before.

This is a cabochon - Earth and White, encased.

And again, on ivory. I like the one with the ivory on top better.

So Earth is very, very reactive with Ivory. It must have a lot of copper in it. It seems to react better to a smaller, focused flame.

I'll get it yet!

Comparison, CiM Seafoam, Kryptonite, Mint Lozenge

2011-12-13T22:30:00.000-05:00

Head to head comparison of the three sea foam / Amazonite colours from CiM.

From the left, we have Seafoam, Kryptonite, and the new, Mint Lozenge.

The Mint Lozenge is a little bluer, the Seafoam is a little deeper (and possibly more translucent), but really close to Kryptonite.

Comparison: Lapis, Earth, Blue Suede Shoes

2011-12-09T22:01:00.000-05:00

With all these wonderful, deep, dark opaque cobalt-like blues, a head-to-head comparison is in order!

Here we have, from left to right, Effetre 242 Medium Lapis, Effetre 240 Light Lapis, Effetre Earth, and CiM Blue Suede Shoes.

In this photo, on my monitor - and take my word for it when I say that this dark blue is exceedingly hard to photograph and reproduce faithfully - the Light Lapis and the Blue Suede Shoes look like a near match - but in real life - the better match is Medium Lapis and Blue Suede Shoes. The three Effetre Lapis's - Light, Medium and Dark (not shown) tend to very in colour from batch to batch so what is a good match now, may not be true for next year.

Here's a close up of Earth - looking streaky and w/o the colour separation that makes this colour so intriguing.

This is Blue Suede Shoes, up close, and a little streaky.

And finally - the two Lapis's - Med and Light. The Light is showing some streakiness too. Well - so is the Medium, but it's more obvious on the light.

It's blue - you can't go wrong with bluuuuuuue.

CiM 702 Marachino

2011-12-08T10:39:00.000-05:00

CiM has released a quartet of new reds - Maraschino, Valentine, Crimson, and Ruby Slippers. There's Auburn too - but CiM has put that with the Browns (700 series).(I'll be review the other 3 shortly.)

Of these new reds - Maraschino is the big winner. Maraschino is a bright, happy transparent red, with a tendency to opacify as it is worked (common in transparent reds) and no sign of "liveriness" - or browning as it is worked. Worked thin, it shows a slight orangey-ness. I prefer my reds a little on the blue side - (think raspberries vs strawberries) but I'll take a slightly orange red over a liver-red any day.

It also stays red in fluorescent lighting. The other three, and Auburn too, look distinctly more brownish in fluorescent lighting.

Here we have - two self coloured spacers. Notice the first one made (on the right), is almost opaque at the core, looking like a red encased over red. (More reheating - as it is kept warm while making the next beads). The one on the left had developed clouds too - not as much yet.

This is a clear core, and an encasing of Maraschino. Even so, some clouds have appeared.

Dots on white. Where it has thinned at the edge - you can definitely see the orangey-ness of this.

And here it is in a feather - with some clear. Mostly, it has opacified, but is still a brilliant and beautiful red.

Maraschino for the Win!

CiM 901 Cotton Candy - Revisited

2011-12-07T08:45:00.000-05:00

Realizing that Cotton Candy is one of the Moonstone glasses, like Cirrus - oops! - I went back and tried it again.

When I first tried it - it had a vaguely milky appearance in the unworked rod, (which I can't show you, as I used all of mine up before I photo'd it.) I expected it to be a little cloudy, and I actually encased a black bead with it - which came out of the kiln looking - black - and left me wondering - wtf was I thinking? (A not uncommon occurrence, btw.)

So, when an astute and tactful reader said "Did you get the moonstone effect?" I was, "Huh?"

The key is you have to strike it for the cloudiness, or, you can work it quite cool, and it seems to develop quite subtly. You don't really see it happen, you notice that it HAS happened.

It is actually very pretty, a nice soft pink. If you get it very hot, you lose the cloudy effect, and you need to really let it cool and then strike it. Gentle reheating at the tip of the flame or just touching the underside edge of the flame. If I have to strike a glass, I generally work multiple beads at a time, so I have something to do while waiting for the glass to cool, and working four at a time was too much for this glass - it gets too cool and cracks - I had significant breakage while working, and had to keep reheating to heal the bead, and then lose the cloudiness and start all over again to strike it.

Here, however, it worked much nicer - this is a hollow, Cotton Candy on the left, a little clear, and the darker pink is CiM 907 Rose Quartz. This application worked much better, as the initial application of glass is fairly cool, and it isn't until you go to round the hollow that you lay the heat in.

It requires some attention to get the moonstone effect in this glass, but some bead shapes and types lend themselves to it better than others.

Anyway - Cotton Candy is a Moonstone, like Cirrus, Halong Bay, and Peacock Green.

CiM Obsidian Revisited

2011-12-06T10:09:00.001-05:00

Tried the Obsidian with Triton, reduced and fumed a little.

Not sure that it is amazingly more effective than on anything else - but you can see that the bead triton is reflective enough to show the pink t-shirt I was wearing while shooting it!

Another reason why I generally wear black all the time - not so obvious in the reflections.

A Little Eye Candy

2011-12-06T08:32:00.001-05:00

Just for a change, a little eye candy.

Here's a big pile o' shiny, sassy beads - all headed out to beadFX to find new homes.

These are Fire Lotus - a core of clear, a really thin layer of Fire Lotus (because I was running out) - and encased in clear. Working 4 or more on a mandrel seems to work best for me, because it allows enough time for the first bead to cool enough to strike properly. So make a clear bead, put the fire lotus on, let it cool while going onto the next one. Clear core, Fire Lotus, if the first one has turned dark, encase it. Move on to the next. Otherwise, I just get bored waiting for the glass to cool and strike it too soon.

Multi Dark - which requires no such effort!

And something really large. This is a core of clear, encased in black - Hades, silver foil, Ivory and Kronos, goobered and swirled, fine silver wire. Reduced.

Did I mention it is LARGE? I call this "Star Nursery."

Cheers!

CiM 805 Obsidian Ltd Run

2011-12-05T21:14:00.000-05:00

CiM - Obsidian. I thought this was another black - mostly because I was prejudiced by the name. However, CiM calls it a "very dark grey."

When I test a glass - I usually test it without any prior knowledge of what it might do. This allows me to discover new things about a glass. Or, sometimes to completely miss the point. (See the recent posts about CiM Cotton Candy and Effetre Earth. Oh well.)

Anyway - this glass looks black to begin with, and, as you can see in these two self-coloured spacers - they look black.

But thin trails over clear show a dark, warm grey - with brownish overtones.

Same results on white - thin trails of a brownish grey. Although - when it is HOT and this thin - it looks purple. Have you noticed the transparent greys all look purple when hot. Sort of disappointing when they come out of the kiln.

And, here is Obsidian on Ivory. I gave this quite a lot of heat - to see if it would break up, crawl, web, or otherwise do something interesting. And, as a matter of fact - it did. (Three views of the same bead.)

According to the CiM website (which - now I can look at) - it is very nice with silver. Will have to try that next.

CiM 702: Auburn update

2011-12-04T18:06:00.000-05:00

After playing with the CiM Auburn - I had a couple of questions about it still - so I went back to the torch to experiment with it some more.

One question I had was: How would it look as a white-cored cane; and the other was: How does it encase, because, once you've been lampworking awhile, you realize that opaque red has a tendency to be unhappy about being encased. You may remember that using Auburn thin enough does reveal it to be a transparent, but it is dense enough that it will read as an opaque. (Many of the "Hot" colours, opaque yellows, reds, oranges don't handle being encased well - and can crack. The usual fix for this is to make a clear core bead, encase it in a thin layer of the troublesome colour, and then encase in clear. This reduces the amount of iffy colour to a lower percentage of the glass and usually allows you to get away with it. Some of them look paler when encased - this does not, however, fix that.)

Here is the white cored cane.

And here is it used. It went on pretty dense and dark, but you can see the light and dark effect that I am coming to be very fond of. It reminds me of scribbles with a felt marker.

BTW - these pics were shot under a hot, incandescent light to show the red colour.

And here it is, Auburn encased. It is a little streaky - but no issues with cracking, and looks fine. It is, I will grant you, and stunningly bad example of encasing. Scum and bubbles and yuck.

I'm still trying to get around to trying the pickling technique for cleaning the clear glass. It's proving to be rather harder to find a container the right size than it is to get my hands on the pickle.

CiM 901 Cotton Candy

2011-12-03T22:34:00.001-05:00

CiM Cotton Candy - a very, very pale and ethereal transparent pink. Notice, over the white on the left, it adds almost no colour.

Might be interesting to encase with this. I wonder what it does over silver?

Otherwise, it is very pale, and will probably appeal to some. Not really dramatic enough for me.

Effetre 737 Golden Toffee Revisited

2011-12-03T19:30:00.000-05:00

Remember Golden Toffee, from a few weeks back? An amber glass that goes cloudy in the kiln?

Remember I said I thought it looked interesting over the black in a tiny corner on one bead?

Here it is, a thin layer over black spacers. Very interesting, yes?

Cool!

Effetre Earth Revisited

2011-12-02T23:10:00.000-05:00

After my post about "Earth" - I got an email from Viviane at Pferdediebin - telling me I was apparently on some other planet on Earth. ;-)

The upshot is - that THIS is the beautiful effect she gets from Earth.

And this!

Hmmmph - a far cry from what I got.

She suggested that it was because she was using it larger and working quite hot - so I decided to take another run at it.

This is a clear core (because I just don't have much of the Earth - I didn't start with much, and I'm now running out! When it went into the kiln - I really thought I had it - beautiful streaky patterns. But coming out of the kiln - wow - it's really pretty - but not getting that turquoise and blue thing happening. I really did cook this - but admittedly - it is a thinnish layer of Earth.

Next bead - same thing - I like it - but not the same effect at all.

However, I did try reducing it - and wow! Look at these desert colours! Is this not totally awesome? Especially in contrast with the blue!

So anyway - I'm going to keep trying with the Earth until I get the turquoise and blue thing figured out. And if you want to see more of Pferdediebin's beads and glass tests - she too blogs on her tests of colours - check out her blog at http://pferdediebin.blogspot.com/. If you don't happen to read German - then open the site in the Opera browser, and let it translate for you automatically. She also has some cool murrini for sale on etsy.

Anyway - I'm thinking from her photo of the heart that maybe a slightly reducing flame is in order - but I'm out of the glass - so it's off to Nortel for me to get more of this intriguing colour!