Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Silver Glass Class 4



I promised to finish up talking about my Reactive Silver Glass Class this week, so here's the last installment. I saved my favorite for last.

To refresh your memory, I told you that the silver glass is divided into two categories: Striking and Reducing. And by far, the reducing is my personal favorite.

Now I've always had a taste of reductive glass. We've had silver blue, silver brown and bunch of others available for a long time. But some of the new ones on the market do make me swoon, at least just a bit.

This top seashell has both cased aventurine as well as "Psyche" which mostly turned purple for me. (woohoo!)
I sure liked the color I got from it. Others in my class also got some blue out of it. I really liked the purple though.

This bottom shell was made using my very favorite reduction glass, Aurae. I love the golden look, (but be careful if you're reducing it- it can easily fume other glass) I also got a little of the multi-hue from it too. This shell looks even prettier in person.

So here are my favorites and they are all Double Helix brands- Aurae & Triton are my top two- after that, I liked Psyche, Gaia and Elecktra.

Now here's what I learned about using reduction glass...you don't need to blast it with a bunch of propane. Turn down your oxy a bit and let little bits of small propane rich flame lick the glass. It seemed to work well for me. Just think of a tongue sized (ew gross, I know- but you get the visual on it), flame and just barely have it touch your glass. In and out of the flame for short amounts of time.

I imagine that different oxygen -propane combinations work too. Depending on your oxygen situation- tank versus different sized concentrators, what your settings are on your regulators, etc. And also what you ate for breakfast, the humidity and whether you are day dreaming about the perfect bead. Okay, maybe the some of the last ones aren't quite as important, but you get the idea.

If you can handle details, it would be so good for you to keep some records of what you do with each type of glass. Now I want you to go forth and try things and let us all know about your experiences.

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