Double Helix: Helios

Much as I am a big fan of Double Helix - er - this colour got a lot of pre-release hype and, uh, well, quite frankly - it seems to be much ado about nothing.

Oh - it looks promising enough when you are working it - goes a nice deep colour and all metallicy - but when it comes out of the kiln - Poof! Where did all that colour and metal go?

The two top beads on the left appeared to strike to a rich yellow or orange - and do appear a little darker than the rod - but that might be just because they are thicker.

The bead at the bottom of the pic was reduced, and developed a haze, but comes out with most of the reduction gone.

Here is that same bead again, from another side. Just a hint of the reduction left.
So I tried again. Sometimes these silver glasses work well on black. So - Helios, on black, reduced (using a Dragon's Breath flame - big bushy flame, no oxy at all)

Harumph. You'll have to take my word for it that there is some on there - cuz you can't see it.

So I tried a third day, and reduced the heck out of it - this was solid silver colour when it went into the kiln.


Double Helix describes this colour as "a golden-yellow citrine, jewel tone super luster." I'll concede the citrine description, and lustre - but argue the super. And if you look at the sample they have - it's like a mirror.

Maybe I should try a different kiln to anneal it. I'm not aware that mine has reduction-eating super-powers though.

Anyway - it's a nice enough colour - and a necklace of beads made with this and combined with gemstones would look awesome - say - smokey topaz. But it does seem to fall short of the Valentine's Day hype that it got.