Canyon de Chelly Revisited

The comment from my last post got me wondering if CiM's Canyon de Chelly strikes differently in different torch chemistry.  I usually combine it with Double Helix Psyche because I love how they work together so I usually strike it and reduce the Psyche all in one go.  What would happen if I wasn't using Psyche?  I don't like turning the gas very high unless I'm reducing something, so I would ordinarily strike CDC by letting it air cool under the table until the glow was gone, then reheating it gently just past the tip of the visible flame.

The beads above are a base of CDC with CiM Hades on top and silvered ivory on the bottom.  The top beads were struck by turning the flame way up and reducing them in the cool part near the base of the flame, and the bottom by leaving the flame at its usual low level and holding the beads just above the visible tip.

I think I got better color out of the bottom ones, made without reduction.  There are hints of pink and lavender I like the look of.  Surprisingly, the top beads struck differently.  Or there is a slight reaction to Hades.The bead on the left shows hints of purple right next to the Hades.  CDC isn't a very translucent color so I don't think it is showing through the glass, such as I'd get with Vetrofond Seashell Swirl, for instance.  Just another odd quirk.

Found Treasures

The thermocouple on my kiln was damaged when I moved so no new beads until next week when the new one comes in, which has me down in a big way.  I did manage to find a few sets of beads that I hadn't listed yet when I moved, so I can have some new things.  I'll ration them out, I think.

My favorite, made with Devardi Aurora frit on CiM Peace.

I really like the delicate color on them.  It's a tough call which I like better, the Aurora on copper green or Peace.

The Effetre streaky denim spacers and indigo hollows I blogged about last week, and I'm not looking forward to trying to get some usable photos of the hollows.  They are lovely and I was going to make them into earrings for myself.  I still might.

I have a second Etsy shop, Fire in Ice Baubles, for handmade findings and non-lampwork jewelry and I made some very cool beads for earrings to demonstrate some dark silver plum headpins I made.  I'm really digging the way the beads look with the copper head pins and end caps.

The beads are a base of Effetre Spring Willow with Double Helix scrolls.  I thought the spring willow would do that wild orange thing it does but apparently this time it decided not to.  It didn't blush much either.  I love the unpredictability of this color!  I made these beads the same day, with the same rod and some blushed and some didn't.

Check out the first spacer to the right of the focal.  Half went orange and the other half pink.  So cool!  If anyone knows why it does what it does, let me know, otherwise I'll have all kinds of fun trying to figure it out on my own.

Color Testing Revisited

 I'm getting ready to move and thought I'd talk about a few things I've been working on before I have to pack up my shop.  The above beads were made with a frit blend from Devardi called waterlilies, on CiM stoneground that had been covered with silver foil which was melted in.  I love how the etching brought out the pinks and the droplets of silver.  On just plain white, below, the frit is pretty, like a summer meadow, I think, but I like it better on the silver and brown.

 I picked up some Devardi Aurora frit as well, above on the NW and SE beads over CiM crocus, and below over copper green.  I really like the way it looks on copper green and have made a set of it, this time getting them all round.  I did do a set on white, where the true colors show up.  It is a pleasing blend of purple, lavender, and greens.

The last color I tested was CiM indigo, a limited run.  For all the world it looks black and may as well be.  The above are hollow beads and you can just about make out the white ribbon stringing them together.  Not sure how I'll use this yet.  I'm thinking of making it into twisties or filigrana and making hollows and/or ruffles with it.

Effetre Metallic Black vs. Dark Silver Plum

 I made this set last month and was very happy with the way it turned out.  The only glass used was Effetre metallic black and while I loved the way the beads looked, metallic black is a pain to work with.  For one thing it is ridiculously expensive, and while that is a consideration, for me it wasn't the main one.  The biggest problem was that it is an Italian black.  It pops and boils, and the matte metallic coatings forms so fast on my low heat little hothead that it was nearly impossible to fuse the raised decoration on.

I decided to try Effetre dark silver plum instead, which is slightly less expensive but more importantly, not at all a pain to work with.  Quite the opposite.  It melts like butter, doesn't go shooting rod ends all over the table, doesn't boil or spark and develops a metallic shine when I want it to and not before.  I used the machine made version because I seem to have gone senile and ordered it twice in a row last year and have lots of it.  There is a difference between how the machine made version reacts in the flame and how the handmade one does but it is more readily apparent with dual fuel torches.  On the hothead, it forms a matte luster easily.

Side by side, the difference between the 2 sets is pretty clear.  The black set is black and the DSP set is, well, plum.  The black set has a more rainbow kind of luster and while the plum set does have tones of teal and gold in real life they don't show up to the camera at all.  I chose these pictures because they highlight the differences.

Here the difference isn't so obvious.  I like how these turned out and if I decide to do a similar set I'll use DSP again.  The metallic black might work for stringer or shards but for  a whole bead with raised decoration it's too much of a good thing.

Vetrofond ELO Revisited

I previously posted here about the difference I experienced with a new batch of Vetrofond Extra Light Olive and how it wasn't acting the same as the previous batch did.  It turns out there is a very good reason for that.  They aren't the same color.  The labels on the bundles say this, I just hadn't read them properly.

The egg on the right is made with the original ELO.  Nice pale olive.  The top bead is made with ELO PALE.  Ah hah!  That would explain it.  Apparently the thing that makes it pale does something in my torch chemistry to turn the glass pink and reducing it, which I did deliberately here, gives it a bronzed look.  Now I can use these two properly!

Vetrofond Extra Light Olive?

I may have missed something here.  The label on the rods says they're Vetrofond extra light olive and, in fact, the unworked rods ARE extra light olive.  When I work them they go pinkish beige with a heavy coppery reduction that reminds me of Picasso finish on Czech glass.  My old batch didn't do this but I'm at a loss as to why.  I do like the color but it wasn't what I was expecting.

It does work great for bunnies!

CiM Opal Greens

Creation is Messy just released a few opal greens and I couldn't resist giving them a try.  These beads aren't my usual run of testing each one against a variety of other glasses but I hope they show me what they are nonetheless.  All the opal greens have a similar blue-green hue.  Had to try them together.

 The base of this tabular bead is Effetre petroleum green and I layered CiM Rainforest, CiM Jade Palace and CiM Seafoam.  I really like it and may do something else along these lines soon.  I wanted to see how translucent these glasses remained and stacked them on black.  They all stayed pretty opal and I was thrilled to see the color was still perceptible.

 The base glass is CiM Tuxedo and I layered dots of Seafoam, Jade Palace and Rainforest, melted everything in and shaped.  I was pleased that the Seafoam stayed visible over the black and even more pleased that the black is still visible under 3 layers of opal glass, some cooked for quite a while.  Now on to see what they do on copper green.

 I loved the combination of copper green and Rainforest, so what about the other 2?  Hard to see the copper green under all that glass but it does the same cool separation thing it did with rainforest.  What I hadn't realized was that under the Seafoam, the copper green looks like it could be white.  On its own, all the blue-green in the copper green seems to have collected in a border on the edge.  It's easier to see on the edge of the bead.

 It's the bit not near the hole where it's grey but just on the edge of the pale green (which is Seafoam.)  I wanted to see if Seafoam did anything neat with Cranberry, which it doesn't unless you count just plain looking nice together.

The above bead was such a pleasant combination that I was determined to try out some rose cane one one of the opals and I picked Jade Palace.

 The roses are horrible and the Rainforest leaf is nearly imperceptible, but the combination bears further testing.  When I was holding the Seafoam, its similarity to Effetre nile green opalino was striking.  There the similarity ends.  As far as melting, piece of cake.  No shockiness, no burning nothing funny.

Comparing side by side beads that have been annealed, they are not at all alike.  The Seafoam stays translucent and is bluer and greyer.  The top bead is Nile green opalino and is effectively opaque.  I dug this small mystery bead out of my fun for the kiddies jar and while I have no idea what I made it with past copper leaf (maybe peacock green?)  the color match is pretty amazing.

Some really cool colors I look forward to playing with some more.

Oh, Those Crazy Pinks

 I'm gearing up for summer and it's watermelon bead time.  I usually blend white with CiM cranberry to make the marbled pink for the flesh, but I have quite a bit of Effetre 456 gold pink and I wonder if I could substitute.

Probably not.  My apologies for the mess on the left.  The mandrels are numbered rather than the beads to avoid a wiring diagram of lines.

1--self spacers of my light batch of Effetre 456 on the left and a tiny bead of CiM cranberry on the right.  It was the tail end of a very skinny rod.

2--456 over clear, cranberry over clear, and a self spacer of my DARK batch of 456.  I only have one rod left  but striking this dark I don't need more.

3--dark 456 over clear and white

4--pale 456 on the left and cranberry on the right.  I think the colors over white show off the characteristics of each best.  The light is very pale and streaky, kind of hard to strike.  Making frit with this, it looks like a thin layer of 456 over a rod of clear.  I'm sure this is my imagination.  In comparison, both my cranberry and the dark batch are a uniform color all the way through.  The dark 456 does show a bit of streaking, though.

5--light 456, cranberry, and dark 456 over white all on one bead.  The dark 456 is almost a fuschia.

6--not that you'd ever know, but this is cranberry with dots of light 456 on the left and dark 456 on the right.  Both burned but can't be seen on the dark background.  My camera doesn't do well with a super light background.  This is why I usually use a grey steel dish to photograph on.

7--this bead is half light 456 on the left and dark on the right, with dots of cranberry on both.  It doesn't show up in the picture, but the cranberry actually burned a wee bit here.  This is the only time I've seen this.

Here's a better view of the half and half bead, and while you still can't see the dots of cranberry the line where the light stops and the dark starts is very visible by looking at the mandrel.

Here's a closer view of the cranberry bead with 456 dots.  I don't know that I can see the dots in this light (you can if you hold it up to the light at just...this...angle, which won't photograph at all) but the smudges of slightly burned bits show.

 Here are some watermelon beads I'm working on and some from last year.  I can't see any difference, and the batch of glass is very different.  Pretty decently consistant on CiM's part, I think.

I couldn't remember if cranberry or 456 made halos around copper green so I made a mixed frit of both for these lentils.  The 456 is the light batch. 

To sum up, CiM cranberry seems more consistant, less likely to burn, and easier to strike than 456, but if I want a streaky transparent pink, I know which glass to use.

CiM Rainforest

 Creation is Messy came out with 4 new colors and I got 3 of them.  I tried out Atlantis last week and this week's Rainforest, a dark teal opal.  The rods reminded me of CiM Mermaid and Effetre grass green opalino.  I imagine it is also similar to petroleum green, but don't have any.

 It isn't hard to see why it reminded me of Mermaid.  I thought it would be basically an opal version of that, but a look at the rods, specifically the rod ends, shows that they are both teal but that's all they have in common.

 Effetre grass green opalino seemed closer, but the rainforest retains more of its translucency when annealed.  Note how the opalino on the rainforest shows up much clearer than the rainforest on the opalino.

 The plain spacer is so small it didn't really lighten up any, and this is a dark color.  Wrapped in silver, reduced and encased, you can still see the mandrel under the light glare and my fingerprint.  I didn't get much reaction from the reduction and there is a reason for that.

 It's really hard to reduce things on this glass.  Both these beads are made with DH Triton.  Note how it only reduced on the edges.  I had a fresh tank of gas and had it turned up all the way to do these, and only reduced the edges of the Triton, and that only without encasement.  As soon as I put another glass on top, away the metallic bit went.

This one would be easier to describe if I hadn't put one of the beads on the mandrel backward.  From the space between the beads is CiM Tuxedo, copper green, EDP, opal yellow, ivory, and CiM Peace.  Black is barely visible on top of Rainforest and Rainforest is invisible on black.  I love what's happening with the copper green.  Must do a bead like this.  Nothing ugly with EDP, but not doing much either.  Opal yellow looks neat with it, but I don't care for what I can see with the ivory.  Peace looks pretty ethereal with it, and I wonder what would have happened if I did layers and encased it.

I want to try this out with copper green and peace (perhaps not in the same bead, but hmmm...) and I think this will be good to use on its own.  Like Atlantis it is a very rich, juicy color, but what I'm hoping for is this shade in an opaque....

Effetre Spring Willow

 I ordered this color with intense reservations, remembering my experience with Effetre mint green, which for me was just a variation of their copper green that didn't do anything special for me.  The picture on Frantz' web site looked very similar.  A little more yellow perhaps, with some streakiness.  As soon as I started heating it I knew this was not the case.  It went transparent the way the ivory shaded odd lots from Vetrofond did.

 The top bead is perhaps the worst lentil I've ever made.  Ignore the shaping and it is with silver melted in and reduced and encased in Effetre super clear.  This glass stays very soupy, and droops in the kiln a bit if it isn't set well going in.  It also strikes to the most delicate pink, which looks phenomenal with the pale green.  Melted in silver doesn't improve it, but that's OK, I like it just the way it is!

 Because it melted like Vetrofond biscotti, I tried it out with DH Triton.  I didn't get much reduction (my fault, not the glass) but the fuming is gorgeous.  Have a close up.  It's almost like another glass.

I didn't actually test this on ivory and I wish I had, but here it is with other colors.  It looks good with CiM tuxedo on the left on both beads.  The top bead has a core of spring willow and the bottom one is with other colored base glass.  Next up on the top bead is copper green, which gets lost.  Copper green is the middle right band on the bottom bead, and other than the spreading, nothing dramatic, so spring willow isn't an ivory.  Opal yellow is on the right end on the top bead and middle left on the bottom.  It so gets lost under the spring willow, both as stringer and as a base.  Peace was the last test color and it holds up a bit better than the opal yellow but bleeds a lot.

I like this glass and I'm thinking 1/4 lb. isn't going to last too long.  I want to do some plain beads just with spring willow to explore that blushing thing, and you can bet I'm going to see what it does with Psyche and a larger bead with Triton, probably doing a set for myself.

CiM Atlantis

 I finally got a chance to replenish some of my glass, and CiM's yummy Atlantis was a new color.  It's a bit of a cross between Mermaid and Ming, and a bit of an opal, though it isn't really evident if it's not layered over anything.  Like all the CiM colors I've tried so far it has been easy to work, without boiling, oozing or being all shocky.

 These odd beads are, from left to right, self spacer, encased with Effetre clear 006, over clear a little too thickly to see how translucent it is, with reduced silver foil badly encased in clear as my tank ran out, and the same bead badly reduced but properly encased.  The glass gets a little lighter on the ends, as visible on the plain bead.  I'm not sure whether working it longer or hotter makes it lighter or darker.  I think the lightening is like the devitrification you see on EDP, but it isn't devitrification because it remains glossy.  Cool fade effect, though.  I would like to blow some shards of this to get a nice thin layer of encasement on clear to get a better translucency.  I acutally like the enencased portions of the bead I reduced with silver foil better, but I'm not sure what kind of bead I'd use it in.  I'll probably like this better for it's clear color.

 CiM Peace separates when applied on top of Atlantis, and Atlantis spreads pretty dramatically on top of Peace.  The separation of the white was still there but not as dramatic when I did this with Effetre white, probably because Peace is very slightly translucent.  On the top row is a bead with a thin shard of silvered ivory melted all the way in but too small to see anything.  The next is Atlantis with EDP dots.  Nice edge and little reaction.  The black spots on the EDP are where I overheated it and burned it.  Not the glass' fault.  On the right is with DH 331 test batch, a sort of Terra light, and I failed to get much color.  Not a surprise considering my skill with striking DH glasses, really.

 I wasn't impressed with what happened when I combined Atlantis with ivory.  On the left I superheated things a bit to get the maximum reaction, and got it.  The effect I got with the barely melted shard of silvered ivory was much more pleasant.

 Opal yellow lightened a lot when I used it with Atlantis, and I like the absence of a reaction.  If I wanted an ivory look I'd use the opal yellow.  Some separation here as well, but tis cool.  I'm digging the bead with CiM Tux and Atlantis.  The blue is still visible but only just on top of the black, which is very neat.

 This one didn't reduce well, or reproduce either for that matter, but it's with DH Triton, on the left unencased and encased on the right.  The reduction effect is actually visible on the bead, but I would have liked more drama.  It is my fault, not the glass.

This one surprised me.  Who knew copper green would do this?  It's like the copper green was trying to sink into the Atlantis but getting stuck on the edges.  And the dark rim in the middle of the copper green waves and dots is just weird.  I wonder if it's some sort of reduction on the copper green and if soaking the bead in lime scale remover would help?  It's as if there's another color running down the middle of each copper green spot.  Not when the Atlantis is on top, though.  That just spreads out all over the place.  I wish I'd studied more in chemistry.  This is so neat and I have no idea why it does what it does.

I love this color.  It's so pretty on its own I may not combine it with anything else but I'm glad I paired it with stuff ahead of time so I don't use up a whole lot on something that's not going to work the way I think it should.  Maybe I should get a little more now.  I tried to order some CiM Appletini and it was already sold out, and this is sure to go that way soon if they don't make more.  I hope they make more of both.

Miscellaneous Work

Time for the awful truth:  My kiln is dead.  I put this bead in it and left it alone, figuring it would do its thing.  What it did was allow the bead to soak for an undetermined amount of time then essentially air cool, without even a fiber blanket to keep it warm.  Its performance has been so so for a while, I think, but this time I caught it.  I'm holding the bead together here.  It was merely cracked, but fell apart in my pocket, cutting my hand as I tried to retrieve it.  I am particularly angry with this bead, since it really was pretty before it cracked and then it went and bit me.

It was supposed to be the focal to go with some of these beads, all made with Effetre Caribbean blue.  The focal shown didn't come out as I hoped because I smeared the yellow badly while encasing and it went particularly ugly with the dark line reaction with the light sky blue of the Caribbean.

This happened a while ago.  It's just taken me a while to feel objective enough to write it down.  I've been making spacers and stuff I can do in annealing bubble, but it isn't the same and I've been doing other mediums, such as polymer clay and wire.  Above is a copper chainmaille bracelet I'm chewing up and the framework for my first effort at Viking knit.  I have to get a chunk of wood and drill some holes to draw it through.

This is the finished polymer clay tree.  I quit when I realized I would never be able to sand it past those gouges left by trying to press it out with my fingers without ruining the tree entirely.  I now own a nylon rolling pin (meant for fondant) and some toungue depressors.I'm at a bit of a loss to explain those white marks in the color.  Any answers, polymer clay folks?

I did pick up some new glass, hoping to lift my spirits while I'm whiling away the time waiting to save up for a new kiln.  The left 3 beads are DH Clio, looking as unlike any Clio beads I've seen as they could.  I don't know whether I messed up the strike or whether they would have finished striking during annealing (sniff) but the darkest I got was a root beer kind of color.  It could be the reducing HotHead, too, because even the plain bead on the left got reduced, and I wasn't even trying to.  2nd in from the left is Clio over clear and 2nd from the right is Clio reduced and encased with clear.  On the right is CiM African grey, which looks a lot like hippo.  I have to dig out my hippo beads and make a comparison.  I'll be honest, I'm really not as excited as I should be about getting the first new glass I've had in almost 6 months.  I'm over halfway there.  Another couple months and I'll be either crazy or back in business.