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.