CiM 429 Tortoise

“The master was an old Turtle--we used to call him Tortoise--'

Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked.

We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock Turtle angrily; 'really you are very dull!'

You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

CiM's new Tortoise is one of the more interesting colours I've gotten to play with in a while. It reminds me strongly of Effetre's Copper Green in it's reactions, but without the tendency to the dull leaden coating.

On the right you can see the end of the cooled, melted rod, showing a soft green,  pale blue, and purple shading to brown.

So right off the bat - you know you are going to have some fun with this one!



 In fact - the first thing I start thinking is how much this colour reminds me of Effetre 219 Copper Green.

So, harkening back to "what do we do with copper green" - why, I tried some dots of EDP, of course! And yep - they do look a lot like EDP on Copper Green. Above, on mandrel, still hot, before kilning, and below, annealed. That's just a base of tortoise, with dots of EDP (Effectre 254 - Evil Devitrifying Purple) on it, melted in. Nothing else.

 And here, we have a poor little self-coloured spacer that got cold and cracked. Note the rainbow of colours inside!

 This is tortoise with clear dots, not melted in. Note the tortoise is lighter, less streaky, and less interesting under clear.

 Tortoise with ivory dots.

 Two self-coloured spacers. Quite a difference, eh?

 Same two, from the other side.

 And finally, with dark turquoise dots.

 As you can see from CiM's page on tortoise, this glass has lots of potential to, er, "taught us" new stuff.

I like the organic colour of it (despite not being a big fan of opaque green), and look forward to playing with this one. It's quite extraordinary to watch when hot - it goes white after being heated to red hot, then cools to blue / grey, and then eventually goes green. It will strike back to green in the kiln, even if you put it in the kiln still white.

CiM 532 Birthstone

CiM Birthstone - a transparent aqua that is almost, but not quite, identical to Effetre 034 Light Transparent Aqua.

That's the Effetre on the top, and the Birthstone on the bottom.









 Basically - they look very similar, but the Birthstone is just slightly smokier in hue. Read on to see what I mean.

 These are 3 self coloured beads. The middle one has a sooty streak - which is not what I mean by smokier. But I did get that sooty smudge a couple of times which could mean that I did not clean the glass properly (or, truth be told, at all ... ) or that I did not have the oxygen / gas ratio perfectly in the zone (probably also true, as I turned it up several times while working - the oxygen, that  is. ) These are made on natural gas/ tanked oxy.

 And a nice little olive barrel bead - for a longer working time than just a spacer. I tried reducing this to see if made a difference - apparently not.

 This is over a core of white, and the left side is the Birthstone, and the right is the Effetre. Here is what I mean by "smokier" - the colour is ever-so-slightly grayer in hue.

 This - however - is another trail of soot. Only on the Birthstone side. And in this case, I honestly don't remember if I turned up the oxy again before proceeding. Sorry.

 Over white.

 Over Effetre Light Turquoise.

 Over ivory. Of course it reacts - but did you know that aqua over ivory gives you green? Yes it does!

And a family shot. You can see the subtle difference between the ends of the long barrel bead in the back.




Some people report a problem with transparent aquas, in general, "frying" when they work them, and so I should think their question is: "Does this glass fry?"

And I can't say that I saw that, but I don't generally have a problem with that anyway - so I think that must be a personal working style.

Are the streaks of soot a characteristic of this glass? I can't say for sure - I'd have to try more of it to find out.

Would I choose to use it over Eff Lt Aqua? I might, although for most people, I think that the subtle colour difference probably won't be enough to matter to them.

CiM 816 Nimbus

 CiM Nimbus - a very dark opaque blue grey. The rods are very dark - not quite dark enough to be mistaken for black, but certainly, they are quite dark.

 The beads themselves are somewhat more obviously grey, and have a bluish note to them.

 Dot of Nimbus on white bleed to a soft, fuzzy perimeter.


















And just to test the opacity - this is Nimbus in a very thin layer over clear. It continues to hold up.

Interestingly - one of the beads cracked (my fault, not the glass) after it went into the kiln. The difference in colour inside the bead is intriguing. 

I really rather liked this glass. I'm not a big fan of grey, but I prefer the cool, blue greys and this is definitely one of them.

CiM 510 Goldenrod

CiM Goldenrod is a true, bright yellow - an acid, yellow's yellow.

In fact - the rod is very close in colour to Effetre 416 and Eff 404 Light Lemon Yellow (on the left, in the tubes). Goldenrod is on the left, apparently floating in mid-air.

















These are 4 self-coloured spacers. Now, like most yellows, this colour will boil like crazy if you  concentrate the heat on it. Either work it cool, high in the flame, or keep it moving. If you keep the heat on one spot - it will go incandescent - white hot, boil, and the resulting area will be a little bit darker when the bead comes out of the kiln.

 Here's a closer look.

As to be expected, it reacts strongly with turquoise. 

And here it is, encased in clear. The two on the left are encased, and the one on the right is not. 

 There is no lightening or de-saturation due to encasing.

Goldenrod is a bright, happy, pure yellow that stays yellow and does not shift to orange when you work it. It is a completely acceptable alternate to Eff 404 (Glass not found). It is no better about boiling - but no worse either. Because it does not de-saturate (look lighter) when encased, you could stop the yellow/turquoise sulfur/copper reaction by putting a clear layer or dot under the turquoise.

CiM 118 Caboose

This little red caboose is more of the colour of a dusty faded caboose that's been up and down the tracks a few times. In fact - this caboose is much more reminiscent of the Effetre corals.
 

 Ignore that super-fat rod, second from the bottom. Dunno what that was, but if you see a piece like that in your package, move on - cuz that was just odd. CiM glass is normally so well-behaved, I can't think what happened here. (This piece was so shocky, I couldn't get it to melt.)

This is a test paddle, and not annealed. You can see that the rapid cooling of mashing it did some interesting colour things. 

This is the other side of the same paddle - it got a little fire polishing.  Not sure if you can keep that fun orange blush of the picture above if you reheat or anneal.
















Like the effetre corals (no two batches are ever the same, so I consider "Coral" to be a class of colours -  not a single colour!) - this colour reacts with turquoise. Here it is reacting quite strongly with the new batch of Effetre Light Turquoise that looks quite greenish in the rod. 

 Here it is with Ivory. These beads are ivory core and one side, and the Caboose applied to the other side - so all that streaking and bandking is coming from the glass reacting.

 Here is a "coral-shape" piece - just wound, smoothed a little, and a "branch" built up on one side. The glass has gone quite streaky.

 Self coloured spacers. The one on the right - worked a little hotter. I think this glass gets streakier the hotter, more aggressively you work it. If you want it to stay nice and plain, work it cooler and more gently.

 Close up with the Light Turquoise dots. Strong border reaction.

 Dots of clear. Most corals are significantly paler under clear - this is almost no difference.

 And the beads with the ivory again. I believe this was dark ivory, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'm not a huge fan of opaque oranges, or "corals" - but this definitely does some interesting things. If you miss the old Effetre coral glass from a few years back - this might be a good replacement for you.

Effetre 253: Striped Pink

Whoa - are those tubes?

Stopped me in my tracks, this glass did! Alas - they are NOT tubes, but boy, do they look like it!

What they are is apparently 254 EDP over a core of ... ?  Clear? Light pink?  The idea being that they will come out striped and streaky when you wind off a bead - much like Raven Sky or Ebony and Ivory, recent fabulous Effetre colours.

But the effect is rather subtle - given that EDP can be somewhat variable - these aren't much more exciting than just using EDP by itself - although, with a core of something not EDP, it should be cheaper than EDP alone.

 Just remember, EDP (Evil De-vitrifying purple, otherwise known as Orchid) will lose it's glossy, glassy look and go chalky if you keep gently warming it. The key to keeping it glossy is to heat it to a glow as the last step before it goes into the kiln. It should be glowing orange and hot, take it out of the flame, keep rolling, and let it cool without putting it back in the flame. Then off to the kiln to anneal. It's that reheating, flashing it in the flame to slow the cooling process that de-vitrifies it.