My kiln is unhappy. The board in the controller appears to be toast - so while I wait for a new one to come (Paragon is expressing a new board for me - I spoke with them on the phone today and they were super helpful. Can't say enough good things about Paragon.) Anyhoo - I can at least catch up with past stuff.
I took another run, again, at Helios. Helios is the new Double Helix colour. It is an Amber colour that can strike darker, and reduces.
This time, I had much better success - because I finally remembered something so fundamental - I'm kicking myself.
That is, the temperature that the glass is when you reduce the bead is important. Glass that is hot and glowing will reduce differently than glass that is cooled to the point of not glowing. Helios will goes hazey and opaque when reduced from glowing, but if you let it cool to not glowing (hold it under the workbench, in the shadows, to see when the glow has gone out of it) - and THEN reduce it - you get more of the mirror/lustre effect.
Below - we have Ekho. This is a base of clear, encased in Ekho, Cooled, and reduced.
And because the lustre doesn't show well in that pic - here the same bead is again, on a different angle. A lovely rainbow lustre shows. Course - now the bead looks black. Win some, lose some.
This is Kronos. Base of clear, encased in Kronos, cooled, lightly reduced. The lower bead was still hot in a band around the middle when reduced - the difference is dramatic.
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