Double Helix Zephyr - Quick glass testing.

Hello friends!

It's been awhile since I posted a blog about my findings. I am always on the hunt for the "perfect clear". One that melts well, is free from scratches on the rods, bubbles, one that is compatible with the glass I use, one that only needs a quick wipe in windex or alcohol to be cleaned. I am excited to say I've found it! I added a few new clears to my last glass order and Double Helix Zephyr was one of them. I had wanted to try their clear for awhile and decided this was the time. Now what I am posting is only Zephyr. These are just my very quick glass tests to see how the glass "behaves" with things I like to use in my work.

Here are the quick tests- (from left to right) Raku encased with Zephyr, yellow filigrana encased with Zephyr, Rainbow dichroic encased with Zephyr, and Zephyr.

All of these tests were done to see if there was any incompatible cracking. As you can see it passed with all of the glasses! This means that I can safely layer these with Zephyr in my work without worrying if I will run into any troubles. The last thing you want to do is make a gorgeous focal bead only to have cracks appear after your annealed bead comes out of the kiln! 

The last bead is just Zephyr by itself. You may not be able to tell, but the glass is AMAZINGLY OPTICALLY CLEAR. No bubbles, no scratches, no anything... AMAZING! It's crystal clear! The glass has the perfect melting consistency. It's not too stiff, but not mushy soft either. 

This next test was to see how Zephyr reacts with silver leaf. On the left you can see what silver does on the surface of the glass. It is a bit shimmery with some gold looking tones. On the right the silver leaf has been gently heated as it was encased. Some clears will make silver leaf look gold when encased. Zephyr leaves silver leaf looking silver when encased.

This last test was to see if Zephyr could be used as a clear core for problematic glass, and to test how it reacts with baking soda. I have learned that yellow, coral and some orange glass tend to cooler faster than other colors. I was having some HORRIBLE cracking issues with some XL focal beads. I bought up this problem in the International Society of Glass Bead makers group on Facebook. They were kind enough to give me the tip of using a clear core as a base for these types of colors to avoid the cracking. So as you can see I have pressed the Sunburst Coral bead super thin and no cracks have appeared! 

Breakage- Sunburst Coral with no clear core.

The last test was to see how Zephyr reacted with baking soda as you all know I am totally diggin on my stone textured beads. It's a bit hard to tell from the photo, but the glass has a layer of white on it with very little pitting.So for the baking soda test I know that this will not be a clear I will use for the stone textured beads. This really isn't an issue since there are plenty of other clears that pit very nicely for stone beads. 

This test also tells me that whatever is in the formula for Zephyr keeps the glass protected from things that would want to destroy it's clarity. 

So what is my review? BUY IT! It's AMAZING! It's worth every penny you spend on it! 

Below you can see some of the clear in action.

 Beads with Double Helix Zephyr.

 Beads with Double Helix Zephyr.

I hope you found these tests to be helpful and that if you were thinking about trying Zephyr that this would give you that extra push to add it to your order.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

xo Genea

HOT, HOT, HOT- Kalypso Silver glass Discoveries & Tutorial

Hello friends!

Well it is HOT outside for sure! I guess that makes this a perfect time to post for a few reasons. 1. It's too hot to turn on a kiln and torch inside when it's about 104 outside. 2. These firey got glass colors are prefect for the hotness outside.

So you may have been seeing my beads pop up on my facebook as I have been making them. I was fortunate to have a ton of luck with the silver glass considering I don't really use it much in my work. The glass will run you about $100lb which is CRAZY expensive for glass. The glass is so pricey due to it's high silver content.

I ventured out on my silver glass discovery to match my  Copper Big Hole focal for Kristi's Challenge.

Here was the donut I received from Kristi. I didn't quite capture all of the gorgeous pinks and oranges in my donuts heat patina, but trust me, they are there.

 

Here is where my adventure began. I checked out a few quick notes from Double Helix to see how to work the glass. I had all of ONE rod to not only learn, but to create some special beads! Yikes! How's that for pressure?! Here is what I learned...

From left to right:

B1- effetre White, Rubino, super clear, Kalypso and super clear. 

B2- effetre Clear, effetre Orange, Kalypso.

B3- Messy Peace, Messy Cranberry, Messy Clear, Kalypso, and Messy Clear.

*B4- Peace base, Cranberry, Messy Clear, Kalypso, Messy Clear- I got these gorgeous results by layering all of the glasses to Kalpyso. 

You super heat kalypso as you melt it into the surface. The glass will somewhat look clear. You want it kind of hot and soupy.  Then you let the bead cool til the glow completely dies out. Check your bead under you work table where it's dark. I then turned down my oxygen to make a reduction flame. I flashed the bead in and out of the flame until the silvery luster appeared. Keeping your bead out of the flame, turn back to a neutral flame, and encase in clear, taking special care NOT to get your bead directly into the flame as you will burn off the luster you just added. When you have encased the bead, bring it to the back of the flame and gently heat. You will see an iridescent blue flash as you are melting in the glass. DON'T OVER HEAT! If you don't see those blue flashes in the glass you have melted off the luster even under the clear encasement.

Also *** Make sure to get your Rubino, Cranberry, and Clockwork covered in clear! If they touch Kalypso you will see black as the silver glass and other glasses have a chemical reaction.

B5-Peace base, Cranberry, Messy Clear, Kalypso, Messy Clear. 

*B6- Messy Clear, Clock Work, Messy Clear, Kalypso and Messy Clear.

I did the steps above and reduced again(turn down oxy flame til you get a bushy flame). You will see the blues appear as you reduce. Gently flash in and out of the flame until you get a nice sheen on your bead. Encase like above.

B7- effetre Sunny Mango Coral odd lot, effetre Transparent Orange, Messy Clear.

B8- effetre Sunny Mango Coral odd lot, Messy Clockwork, Messy Clear, Kalypso, Messy Clear.

*B9- effetre Opal Yellow, effetre Rubino, Messy Clear, Kalypso, Messy Clear.

Followed the same steps as above for * results. It seems like you could see the luster in the bead when you after it was worked and put into the kiln. So if it looks pretty going in, it will be gorgeous coming out of the kiln later! It's nice that you can see the results and know you got the glass to sing :)

 

Below you can see the AMAZING results I got from the * posts above. I think the Clockwork, Messy Clear, Kalypso, and Messy Clear produced the best results! Those are the first 6 results from left to right. 

For more of a golden orange results like the next to spiral coin beads, I used: Peace, Cranberry, Messy Clear, Kalypso, and Messy Clear. 

FOR BEST RESULTS:

To get the ULTRA blue/purple iridescence you want to reduce the bead until the sheen looks dark. It doesn't take long. It also looks like you may have over-reduced the bead, but as you encase the bead and re-heat it in the flame to melt down the encasement you will see it lighten and the blue iridescent flashes appear!

The bright pink flahes come from super heating the Kalypso when you first melt in the layer of glass. make sure to use a hot oxidizing flame to get the glass clear looking when you melt on the Kalypso layer!

I have found that using Clock work under Kalypso gives you the perfect mix of firey orange to go with the hot pink and blue/lavender iridescence. 

Want to see what you can create using those techniques???

 

Just look at all of that COLOR!

 

Look at those gorgeous flashes of iridescence on the firey HOT pink and orange!

Be sure to stop back to see how I incorporated this incredible beads into my desgin with Kristi's gorgeous Copper large hole focal!

See ya on Saturday!!

xo Genea

Pat Frantz Dichro Tutorial- My beads

Hello all!

I thought I would share my experiences with you about Pat Frantz new dichro tutorial I received a few weeks back. It took me until just now to get a chance to work on the beads, but I really enjoyed learning something new! Mad respect to dichro bead makers.

Working with dichro takes patience and time. You have to gently heat dichroic glass, glass side facing the flame crystal side facing away. Little heat exposure burns the crystals and the clear they use for dichro gets scummy easily. Also when working with dichro a good bond has to be made with the bead base and dichro or else your glass will crack. It's a wonder people can make beads with it, huh?! lol.

Here is a you tube video Pat did to show you how to make a dichroic lightning bead. She makes it look so effortless! ;) This awesome video should help as a visual aid to demonstrate how the glass is applied to a bead.

Here were my first attempts. I didn't have the proper glass for the tutorial for these beads, but used what I did have on hand before getting the glass in the tutorial. The bead on the left has rainbow 2x 1/4" strip dichro and triton double helix. The bead on the left has rainbow 2 1/4" strip dichro and corkscrew dichro. Both pieces are on a base of Tuxedo.

Here are all of the beads from my first attempt making all of the tutorial beads. I botched the first plain dichro bead and used up the whole strip of pink and had to use other assorted strips of different colors to try out the technique. I didn't do so awesome not burning the dichro! Oops! As dichro melts the crystal layer curves upward pulling itself towards the torch flame and exposes the sides. This is why it's very important to heat the clear side that faces the flame and gently push is down and spread it out to protect the crystals.

You can see I cracked my off mandrel pendant as well :( I did this in the final steps when trying to heat off my punty(a punty is a temporary glass handle(usually it can be metal too) used to hold glass while doing off mandrel techniques. In this instance the tungsten pick I was using to hold the pendant through the hole on the top actually stuck to the glass! Whoops! I was frantically trying to push off the pendant into the kiln before it cooled too much before realizing it was stuck. Bummer cause it was really pretty too!

I ended up cracking my ruffly bead second from the top too. I am thinking I didn't get a good enough bond with the dichro and the base bead.

The top zig-zag bead turned out awesome!

 

Here is a close up picture.  You can see all of that pretty "oil slick" effect I got with reducing Triton. If you look at the blue zig-zags you can see the shimmery red orange dichro that lies on the top. It's such a cool bead to make and see it all come together. It pretty much has a blanket of shimmer on top of the core design! So cool!

Here is a close-up photo of the back side of the pendant I cracked from it getting stuck to the pick and cooling too much.

 

Here is my last attempt re-doing the beads I messed up the first time through the tutorial. I managed to get the pendant made, but I ended up trapping some scummy clear under my top layer of square patterned dichro. Dang!

I ended up cracking my ruffle bead again too! Drat! It didn't show the cracks until the next day after annealing. I must not have gotten a good bond again. 

I did FINALLY get my plain dichro bead all encased without scum on that last try too! The color is SO pretty!

Well I hope you enjoyed reading about my experiences. If you lampwork I hope you will go on over and pick up Pat's tutorial and give it a try!

If you want to see the thread I posted on Lampwork Etc. to hear what other people had to say and see how their beads turned out, visit the link here :) Show me your Pat Frantz Dichro Tutorial Beads.

See you soon!

Much love,

Genea