Video: Glass Fish

This video is quite interesting. This is a British Museum video,  made at Corning. I would have liked it a little better if they had shown the original vessel that was being replicated.





For lampworkers, it's always interesting to watch glass blowers work, to see the differences, and the similarities in working techniques.

For instance - watch how he works the lips - even when the glass has lost it's glow - the clear is still hot enough to move. In general - the significant difference in thermal mass is what allows blowers to spend so long out of the furnace that I am sitting here thinking - "ahhh, it's gonna crack, warm that sucker back up ... . " You get kind of twitchy about that sort of thing as a lampworker, especially when you teach.

The technique for the clear fin is pretty cool too - the two ribbons of glass, and then tweeze into shape. We could do that.

The coolest part is at the end, clearing up the neck of the vessel. I haven't seen that method used for cracking glass before. Way cool. 

Another interesting thing is that this seems to be some sort of vessel or vase - but you couldn't stand it up on end - does it balance sitting on an angle on the lips and the fins? Is it a sort of decanter?

Anyway - cool stuff.

Random Eye Candy

 Sorry - don't remember how I made this - just sharing it because it is cool.

Lots of high-silver glass, I can tell you that.

Effetre 757 Ka-Bluey

 Ka-Bluey - another in Effetre's new streaky blue offerings. This is a dark blue + grey - like storm clouds on a summer's day - ready to explode into durm and strang. Whether you get more or less of the blue or the grey depends, I think, the rod and where you are in it, rather than any particular working technique.

I really like this one. My kinda glass.

Comparison: CiM Aloe Juice and Green Lantern

Side by side - Green Lantern on the Left, Aloe Juice on the right.

See what I mean about Aloe Juice being a lighter version? Still had problems boiling it though.

CiM 425 Mint Chip

CiM Mint Chip - a fitting name - fresh and pale green like a mint ice cream. Bead on the left is self coloured, on the right, with ivory dots.

This glass goes very pale when hot - almost grey, but returns to a soft green colour when cool.

CiM 811 Weimaraner

CiM Weimaraner - why - yes it is. It is the colour of the grey ghosts themselves.

A streaky, neutral grey - just what the dog-tor ordered. The small spacer on the left does not look quite so much dramatically darker in real life as it does on my monitor - your monitor may differ, of course. It is a little darker - maybe because I got it hotter (less glass) or more heating and cooling cycles. Anyway - it real life -it's not that different.

CiM 423 Green Lantern

In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!!!

Fundamentally - this is a darker, more saturated version of Aloe Juice, but without the tendency to boil. A really pretty green, a little on the blue side - just a nice, comfortable colour.  I like it!

CiM 422 Aloe Juice

 CiM's Aloe Juice is a pretty, light, transparent bluish-green.

I think it wants to be worked cool though - it boiled like crazy for me.

Both the left and right beads show the evidence of the boiling. The centre one came out ok though.

Probably fine for those of you that don't attack your glass with a monster flame like I do.

You know - I've review Aloe Juice before - and it wasn't this color. It was more of a peridot. Neither did it boil.  I wonder if I misread a label on the old one? This is a much better match for the CiM website listing.

Double Helix: Thallo

 Thallo - a reducing colour from Double Helix.

The official blurb is:

Thallo is an emerald green super luster.  Repeated brief reductions create a palette of exterior lusters;  silvers, golds, blues, greens and purples.  It was developed from the popular test batches OX-459 and TO-578.


So let's see what we get.


This is a self-coloured spacer - not reduced. It's a pretty shade of green.

 And this one is reduced. Kinda murky and muddy. Reduced while still too hot.

I did a base of clear for this, and encased with Thallo, let it cool - no glow in it at all (check while holding the bead under the table - darker - easier to see that the glow has gone out of it.). Reduced.

You can see the reduction - but it's not very dramatic. It shows better at an angle.  

Tried again - again, a base of clear - although one of the ends of clear I grabbed might have been Aion, as I had some odd striking going on.

Reduced it, again cool, but for a bit longer.  I could see greens and purples when I put it in the kiln, but it came out much less impressive. The black lines are intense black - well - that questionable intense black that I mentioned earlier.

 Backlit.

 And at an angle, you can see the reduction.

This was a base of CiM Lichen,  Thallo in the centre, black lines on the left, reduced on the left side only. I like the blue that the black went from the fuming. This was much more impressive when it went into the kiln. It's kind of meh now.

 Day 2 of testing - now that I've seen what I got above - I'm going to try reducing multiple times.

And this is better. This is a base of clear, encased with Thallo, cool to no glow, reduce, cool, reduce, cool, reduce. Much more dramatic effect.

 On the angle - you can really see it.

 Backlit - you just see the glass and none of the lustre.

And finally - a set of spacers - all cooled to the "omigawd they are going to crack" stage, and reduced twice or more, high up in the flame - way out at the tip. 

I think this shape lends itself better to viewing the effect. The larger, flattish surface of the lentils requires that you view it on an angle to see the best effect, and because of the curve of the surface of these, you see the effect more readily and without having to hold the bead at a specific angle.

So - reduce cool, reduce multiple times, and go with tightly curved surfaces.

Just for fun. Bing and Neon Blue

Just for fun - twistie with white, CiM Bing, CiM Neon Blue, encased in clear, flattened, stamped with brass starburst pattern.

Cim 524 Neon Blue

And speaking of drop dead gorgeous and new favourites - CiM's Neon Blue.

Wowsers. This is the perfect blue!

(pictured, from left, self coloured, over white, over EDP.)

Just freaking awesome. Cobalt Blue can be a little too dark sometimes, and this is that colour - but thin enough to still read as Cobalt blue.

Fabulous. Love it.

CiM 523 Tradewinds

CiM Tradewinds is a super dense transparent teal - a blue just on the greenish side. From the left, these beads are over white, self, and over clear.

You can see that the self-coloured bead is very dark - it might as well be black. Use this to good effect in stringers and twisties.

Very pretty colour when diluted with clear or white.

Effetre 297 Cocobean

 Effetre Cocobean - the rods I got of this are stringer skinny - so for a large bead, it might be faster to make the bead and encase instead of chasing these thin rods around.

The bead on the left, I struck, and the bead on the right, I left unstruck.

You can see the struck bead is definitely darker, and has a lot of colour variation too - it struck quite unevenly. It's a super nice bead - ranging from ash grey in places (not shown) to chestnut red.

I think it would be particularly interesting for sculptural beads, i.e. horse beads. Or maybe a cute little mousie.

Video: How Do You Get The Flowers Inside The Glass?

Those of you with some lampworking experience won't find anything new here, but this will be useful to show your friends who are wondering "just how you get those flowers inside the bead ...  ."

Eff 759 Sandlewood

 Effetre Sandlewood - a streaky brown that does, in fact, look like wood!

Interestingly - it had a slightly mottled, metallic look while it was hot, that you can still see now that the beads are out of the kiln.

See below, visible best in the bottom third where it is reflecting the table top more dramatically in the mottled pattern.

Cool huh? Don't know what it means, if it reacts, does other cool things, reduces, or what. Worth investigating further though!

CiM 424 Goblin

CiM Goblin - a very good colour for goblins, green and streaky, like it just emerged from the swamp.

Bead on the left has ivory dots.

Nice and streaky.