Quest for a clear clear

Well, no photos as of right now for this posting.
The quest for a clear clear is much more elusive than one may think, a sort of holy grail for beadmakers.

The old Moretti/Effetre is known for being sratched in shipping and handling and then it scums up and bubbles and that simply isnt what we are after. Working it colder and slower it does work OK. Thats not the american way however, we want to blast the glass with tons of heat and make it, no force it to melt now, faster. This is not the best way to do it apparently.

So folks have wandered around looking at clear from other manufacutrers like Vetrofond, which I do like and is a pretty good clear. However, lots of clear is dramatically impacted by the flame environment. Its in the flame where the propane mixes with oxygen that soot can develop, burnt or unburnt fuels, unless this mix is just right your clear will look smoky and streaked with black soot, again, simply not acceptable. I have boxes of beads that would have otherwise been show-stoppers , museum quality beads or so I tell myself if it wasnt for the sooty smoky streaked clear.

Those folks who work on oxygen concentrators are plagued by this even more, so Im told since they dont get a pure 100% O2 from a tank. They are working on an already diminished supply like 80-99% which means they are starting out handicapped. Its starting to sound as though no one could ever get clear, really clear glass onto a bead.....

Latest player on the scene is Kugler. I bought some as it was touted to be the, I mean THE solution to bad clear glass. Its compatible (big issue but not the point of this disucssion) and was/is supposed to be scratch free from better handling. All the posts I read about it at first were great. The solution to the clear issue. So I bought about a pound of it to try out. I was late getting into the run on it. So, when I ordered, I was only able to get 10mm rods. These rods are bigger and have a tendancy to break apart violently when put into the flame even if you do it very gently warming it up slowly.

SO, the glass sat there for a few weeks. I read a few more posts and folks were complaining that it wasnt the magic bullet now. It didnt make the beadmakers less depressed like some zoloft they were apparently looking for. It took marks from tools and left black spots. It also got black streaks and sooty. IT was not what they said it was ! I left mine on the bench for a few more weeks.... Depressed that I did not have the magic solution in hand.

Yesterday, (I know get to the point already) I tried it out. The large rod poped and cracked when put in the flame as I knew it would. The clear did get sooty and streaks of black. The death knell to clear. However when my flame was properly adjusted, and I got it on there properly it was and is very nice and clear. I will post photos. As they say, "it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools". What I found was that its like any glass, as good as those who use it. Yeah it seems to come delivered with less sratches and bubbles in it, it works well in the flame as long as its correctly set. Its no magic bullet but its not bad either.

To end the quest for clear I will have to say, its not the magic bullet that some people may want but its not a bad glass either. It appears to me to be very clear when properly applied. Photos to follow later in anther posting for you to see.

Some more beads of course

Here are a few older beads....

These are organics of the first variety I made. These have a heavy coat of clear and are barrel shaped or tubes shaped. I still like the way these look. In fact, perhaps I will make some today ! The one on the left has a neat band of blue that really is hard to create.

Here is an older lapidary bead. Its hot worked and then after its kiln annealed its cut or ground down on a lapidary wheel. Then the grits are moved up in size until you polish it up to shiny again. Note that this beads is ground flat on two sides which are pointing up and down. If they were facing the camera, you could see through the bead. Compare that first generation lap bead with this one here....

Id have to say that this guy is like 3rd or 4th generation lap bead. Is square and has a window ground into it and you can see through it. Not a bad bead. There is something missing from it though. I should also mention that making a normal bead takes me about 30 min in the torch, then there is the time in the kiln. These then have added time on the lapidary grinder which means that by the time these are done, I have quite a bit of time invested in creating these guys. I like the green over top of the ivory and clear. There are actually two different colors of transparent green used in this bead to give shade and complexity to the green component of it. I kind of wanted to put something inside the ivory to look at so you wouldnt see that mandrel hole running left to right there....

5th generation lapidary donut right here !! Drum roll.... Ta da ! Now on this baby, Im using a large mandrel to get that large hole. This is about 30mm across total, and its already sold. Each of the round transparent windows is a separate piece. I make the round "cane" then nip it into 1/4 inch pieces and assemble them around the mandrel. They are all round the mandrel, I melt the whole piece up well, round it out and shape it. Then once its cool, I get to work grinding. When hot, the ends of the windows tend to close up. Grinding them 'opens' them up again. I have to thank my bead daddy Tom Holland for showing me how to do this. Sage and Tom Holland are in my opinion the mom and pop of American beadmaking. Im sure that there are others who deserve lots of credit but since I love them, they get the credit here.

Now a few places to check out if you havent already seen them.....

AZ bead museum-http://www.thebeadmuseum.com/

ISGB (international society of glass beadmakers)-http://www.ibead.com/visual_arts.aspx

Ibead-http://www.ibead.com/visual_arts.aspx

Wetcanvas- www.wetcanvas.com

Glass artists.com-http://www.glassartists.org/

My bead pal and awesome beadmaker Terri Caspary-http://casparylampwork.com/buy-beads.php

Awesome artist friends of ours who make very nice jewlery, and paintings-http://www.bethpiver.com/

Non-bead related blog by my web buddy about all things MI and river adventures- http://www.riverrant.blogspot.com/

Thats all for now....

Here I am at the torch

Here is a photo of me about to create beads in one of my former, out-door studios. It was really a 3 sided car port. Loved working outside in TX and weather rarely kept me from working. The wind wreaked the most havoc with my work and sent the torch flame dancing about and would make me chase bits of silver leaf about the studio as if I was some deranged butterfly hunter.

Warring States beads

Now this is really one of my favorite kinds of beads. These beads have tons of history and the style is very attractive to me. I love the precision of placing all the dots and getting things laid out very orderly, its the anal retentive in me.

Id like this blog to be about beads and mostly bead photos of beads I have made. Here are a few more warring states style beads....

This one is made on transparent amber glass, the turquoise kind of bled in with the black but this ended up being a cool bead.

I like the way the turquoise looks agains the amber. I do mostly 3 dots and twist them, more looks too cluttered I think. Less and you dont get a good design that fills a dot.

Timing for the twist is critical. If the glass is too hot, your twisting device (usually a thin piece of glass) melts and you get no "pulling" of the design dots, it just spins around. If its too cold, you also get no "pulling" it breaks and nothing pulls anywhere.

Here is a set of warring states style beads in a "traditional" cobalt glass color scheme. I sort of prefer to melt all my dots down and in smooth. Its far more difficult to leave them raised up and get them to stand up straight and be even around the bead.

www.stoffobeads.com

Organics

More photos of beads, just got to love the beads !
Most of these are what I would consider ogranics. They are created by the ivory glass which is chemically reactive with other colors mixing around in the flame and then you kind of come out with a chemical goo that hopefully works for you.

Kind of tricky sometimes as they require a bit more heat or just the right amount of heat to make the mix happen but that kind of heat generally means that you will loose the shape of the bead and have to rework it a bit.

Finally you end up with something that if you are lucky looks decent. These beads often look good acid etched to create a matt finish and then they look like rocks or something other than glass. I like to cover them in clear glass to give them depth and magnify the underlying design or matrix.

www.stoffobeads.com

Boroscilicate beads

Here is a nice batch of boro glass beads.

These guys were made in sets of twos and threes, except for the larger focals.

I really dig the colors you can get if you know what you are doing in boro. Im learning what works with what but more often than not my boro beads dont come out this well. This is about 2 sessions at the torch for me. I normally work in soft glass which melts at a lower temp, colors are different, price for the glass is different, and I can melt soft glass faster.

www.stoffobeads.com