Double Helix - Nyx

I think I might be finally getting a handle on this glass. Nyx is one of the uber expensive and ultra silver saturated glasses from Double Helix - But DaMn - do I ever like it! And, after some significant practice - I am starting to get reproducible results.

In the rod - the glass appears almost black - hold it up to the light and you will see a hint of violet purple. I find it helpful to label the rods. A lot of these silver-saturated glasses look black at casual glance, and without labelling - you soon have a work area full of black glass and no idea what is which.

These three little spacers are a core of Nyx. The two on the left are reduced, and then encased. I like to get all the glass for the encased melted into a gather and encase all at once - this stops the reduction from being reversed while encasing - I keep the bead out of the flame from reduction to encasing. The one on the right is encased without reducing. The deep blue colour develops in the kiln. The instructions for Nyx tell you that you can vary the shade of blue by lengthening the holding period before annealing. I have held from 0 minutes to up to 8 hours and gotten the same colour - so I must be missing something.


This bicone is black and ivory base, with Nyx and Aion trails. The Nyx is the blue trails. Notice that despite the pale transparent look of the Aion - it looks amazing over black! (click on the picture for a better view.)






This is Nyx, reduced, and under a very deep layer of clear. (It's a drawer pull.) The longer you work it and the deeper you encase it - the more you tend to get a lovely gold shimmer. Check out this lentil - showing the same mirror-bright gold shimmer - quite extraordinary.






This big hole dragon is made entirely of Nyx - such extravagance - there is 2 and a half rods in there! I reduced each section as I finished it. The reduction was remarkably hardy, and was not negated by regular heating for temperature maintenance. Spot heating to a glow would revert it to it's dark colour. This piece has an extraordinary range of teals and blues. Note, the inside of the hole is the dark blue. (no reduction there!)


And finally - the tablet beads are Mor 438 with trails of Nyx, reduced.


My personal preference runs to glasses that give surprising results - and this one is champion!