Patience may be a virtue, but I'm not at all virtuous some days. I'm listening to the annealer relays click and wishing it would get on with it. I made some more beads with the spring willow I blogged about yesterday and I can't wait to see what happened. Like all cases of infatuation, there is that initial glow and the inevitable disillusionment.
Today's disillusionment came when I changed the tank on my MAPP gas. The flame is hotter and voila, not only is spring willow soupy but it boils. Badly. Ever so much worse than ivory. I've never seen huge bubbles form within the rod as I'm heating it. Must see what it does with intense black and Hades. Usually when I get an air bubble in a bead I heat it more to get it thin, let it cool a little and pop it with my probe. These puppies just keep reforming. It also seems to scum up quite a bit the way turquoise does. Don't know what will come out of the Chillipepper....
The first bead sagged so much while I was trying to get a bubble out that I finally decided to go with it and let it sag all the way, pressed it in my leaf masher and drew it out to a point. It didn't seem to strike as beautifully today either. Probably needs to be done at a lower temperature. Assuming the beads anneal at some point I'll throw in some pictures.
The apartment is about 90 degrees with the heat wave we've been having and the torch and kiln on. Dinner tonight may very well be leftovers. I don't know, though. I don't get home until 11 tomorrow and have to be at work at 5:30 on Saturday so I'm not loving the idea of cooking tomorrow night.
Carol, I've never played with fire and glass though I admire artisans like yourself that do. I just have to say though, those watermelon beads are ADORABLE! Hope you figure out the new heat situation with the torch!
ReplyDeleteHave at terrific day!
Dawn
Thank you! I'm feeling lazy summery today.
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