True Parallel Love

Oh my!!! Is love at first sight truly possible? Can you fall truly, madly, deeply in love at the first glimpse?

You better believe it! Especially if the item in question is a tool. Not just any tool, but a beautiful tool. A wonderfully well-crafted, well thought out tool. A beautifully balanced tool. An exquisite expression of humanity's destiny as a tool-making ape. Oh my.


This stunning baby, that looks like it perhaps should be on the space shuttle, next to the Canadarm - is the TP Mashers - and TP stands for truly parallel.

And in the best tradition of the best tools, it is immediately obvious that mash parallelly is exactly what it is designed to do.




Note the scissor action. Note how the head - the mashy part - stays completely parallel. Have I mentioned the sheer parallelity of these?

But wait - there's more. Not only do these mash your bead with complete and utter even action - they have switchable graphite pads - so you can change shapes.

Here are 4 different shapes, and the tiny, tiny Allen key that you need to undo the screw that holds them in place. Which I now live in fear of losing because it's so small.

Changing the graphite shaping "pucks" is simple - undo the screws, turn the masher to point the now loosened puck downward, and have it slide into your hand. (Graphite ain't particularly strong - I wouldn't suggest dropping it.) Good news - due to all the lubricating graphite, I think we can assume that the screw will never get stuck!

In addition, the heads (where the pucks are contained) can be released and unscrewed. I haven't actually found a use for this yet, but I like lots of options, so it's cool.

There is a set screw that you can use to prevent mashing too thin, or to get consistent thicknesses. I personally never use this, but some people like them.

The pucks come in flat, lentil, and large and small cushion, or maybe bar. Note, in these pics, and in real life, the cushion masher appears to have a disfiguring ridge down the centre. This is completely an optical illusion, but you have to use your fingers to reassure yourself there is no ridge there.


The flat is, well, flat. The lentil is a nice curve, w/o being so deep that you need 3 rods to fill it.

The cushion press is possibly the most versatile - as most of the shape control starts with whatever shape you start with. You can see from this handful of mandrels - all done with the large cushion press - that every thing from large rectangular tabs (teal over silver - also see last post), bracelet tabs, slender tubes, and even more drop like shapes all lead to interesting shapes when mashed.







This is the lentil shape. I usually flatten off that little scoopy bit at the end - I really don't like the "wings" on lentils - some people adore 'em though.


But of course, one of the first things I did was swap out one of the flat pucks for a lentil puck, and start making flat-back lentils - or turtle-back shapes. Half the glass for one thing. And I'm not sure, but I think that they may resist flipping over when worn as a pendant (the heavier side - the lentil side - should, in theory, stay at the back - so this would make the flat side the focal side - but I'll be stringing these and testing that theory.)

My only problem with this masher is that I will need more than one, as you just can't swap pucks in the middle of a bead, and I will probably want one set up for flat mashing at all time, and ideally, 3 more or 4 more (lentil, cushion, turtle-back, other cushion), but I might have to build up to that.

If you do spend a lot of time mashing a single bead from very hot, you might find that, when you go to pick it back up - the heat has transmitted to the handles, and they are warmish. Not really warm, but warmer than expected. Or maybe I just put a hot tool down them and didn't notice.

Anyway - I think these are fabulous - I hope they made a lot of them! Woohoo! I also hope that more puck options will become available too. Maybe some to impress designs, like spirals?

---

Postscript: As I have had requests from multiple sources as to where to get these - I got mine from Jean Robichaud at Nortel Mfg in Toronto - I know she has more coming - so if you are in Canada - that's a good option. Email her at jean [!at] nortelmfg.com

They are being made and distributed by Wale in the US, so if you are in the States, they are a good choice.

Outside of continental North America, email both and see who's shipping is cheaper. ;-)

Lauscha: Tr. Copper Green, Forest Green, Olive over Silver

So, after mentioning that I thought these transparent Lauscha greens would look good over silver foil - I thought I would give it a shot.

On the left, the Tr. Copper Green, or, as I think of it, Teal, over silver with a hint of emerald green (Moretti) to add interest (streaked with Sasha's silver and intense black.) Love it!







Next up - the Forest Green (086) and Olive or Moss Green-Grey (087) over silver. Forest green on the RIGHT, Olive on the left. (Thur. Herb is the base colour, under the foil, with some teal striped on (under the foil) for good measure. As I observed before - they are pretty similar.

All of them look wonderful over the silver! I thought they might!

Lauscha: Thüringian Herb, Tr. Copper Green, Forest Green, Olive

On the greener side of the Lauscha palette, we have, from the bottom,

• Thüringian Herb (608)
  
• Tr. Copper Green (081)
  
• Forest Green (086)
  
• Olive or Moss Green-Grey (087)
  

(see last post for notes re: product numbers.)



And here, from the left, same colours.
Thur. Herb, Tr. Copper Green and the same over white, Forest and Olive.



I've used the Thur. Herb quite a bit - I like it a lot for simulating a pale, carved stone look, like a pale jade. It's translucent in the rod, although this bead doesn't show it, and very stiff - nice for sculptural work.









I just think of this as teal - the transparent copper green name is confusing, as it is so different from the Moretti Copper Green. It is a dark colour, and shines when diluted, i.e. over white or clear.







These two, Forest Green on the left, Olive on the right, I really had to think about whether they were different colours. In real life, under some lighting conditions, they appear identical. Upon close exam, the Olive is a little grayer.

Not a huge difference. I think that over white, you might see the difference more clearly. The rods look very similar - only the diameter is radically different. I suggest you label them or keep them very separate if you want to use them separately - otherwise, you'll just mix the two together on your bench.


Here they are again.

I like the Thur. Herb, and the teal is a great colour. These two are nice, but probably won't get a lot of use from me - except - hmm - I wonder how they would look over silver foil?

Oh, and one more image, the rods and the beads together.

Lauscha: Yellow, Orange, Red

Lauscha is well known for it's beautiful transparent reds - ok, I blather about it a lot - not sure if that qualifies as "well-known."

What about the other firey colours?

Here we have (from the bottom of the stack)

• Transparent Yellow (145)* (see note on numbers at the bottom of the post.)
• Tran. Orange (150)
• Opaque Yellow (341)
• Light Red Transparent (220L)
  

And again, as spacers, from left to right.








The Transparent Yellow has developed "clouds" in it's core - not staying completely transparent - exactly like the Moretti Electric Yellow. I find this trait somewhat endearing, but if you don't like it, work slower and cooler.

Likewise, the Transparent Orange has a more solid core.

Both are lovely - and the yellow is a particularly pure and bright yellow.






The Opaque yellow is just sunshine in glass form - how happy a colour is that? I know, how much yellow can you use? Yellow is an accent - it makes candy colours sing. No one loves yellow, but it makes everything else look great.

This is the transparent red. The light transparent red. Looks like an opaque. A very rich colour - you could use it over clear to retain transparency. The slightly transparent nature of it means that it is more luminous than a true opaque red.

The red is a striking colour - but striking it is effortless. Make your bead - you will note if you get the glass very hot, it will lose all it's colour. Take it out of the flame and let it cool to not moving - then bring back into the flame, rotating, and you will see the colour develop. Repeat for darker colours, spot heating specific areas if you want to adjust the colour there. You can reheat to very hot and drive out the colour and start again - pretty much as many times as you like. There is probably a limit, but I've never hit it.

Likewise, the Tr. Yellow and Tr. Orange need the same kind of treatment (striking) to ensure their colour develops fully.

Loooove these colours!
--
Please note: I get my Lauscha from Lauschalady.com - so the numbers are hers. Other vendors of Lauscha are glassdaddy.com and firelady.com. Unlike Moretti, Vetro and CIM colours - there does not seem to be a consistent product code convention (or even a colour name convention - so getting a matching product from another vendor is somewhat hit and miss.)

BTW, I have purchased from Glass Daddy some years ago, and the service and quality was excellent then - but, of course, now that I can buy locally, I do. I have not purchased from Fire Lady - but have no reason not to - other than geography.

Lauscha: Transparent Purple

This is the colour that originally brought me to Lauscha. I love the transparent red - I adore this purple. Unfortunately, I can't tell you if this is the light or dark variant. You can see through the rods, so I have had darker, but you pretty much have to layer it over white or clear to show it's colour (see pic.)

But what a bee-yoo-ti-ful colour. Now THAT'S purple!

A bright idea

I got a request for light bulbs - I was really pleased the way they turned out. This is Mor. Dark Silver Plum for the base, and Cim Cirrus for the bulb. I think they are adorable, and the cloudiness of the Cirrus is perfect for the light bulb, although DH claims that only burned out bulbs look cloudy like that.

Lauscha - Two Layer Red

Surprisingly, this red transparent over a white core yeilds streaks of oranges and reds - like a glorious sunset. I would have thought to see the white at least pop up occasionally - but apparently not, so far. Mostly the red layers over the white in varying degrees. Of course, the more you heat, drip and work it, the more blended it gets.

These leads me to think that someone needs to make a transparent light amethyst over an opaque periwinkle core. Now that would be a seller!

I like the cored glass - it makes an interesting bead with very little effort - great for spacers. This one is definitely for the bright and happy colour palatte.

Lauscha: Fuchsia

Lauscha is famous for it's pinks - lovely pinks, reds and purples. This particular pink is called Fuchsia - although I would say it's a little pale for fuchsia, myself.

The instructions say it will go darker the more you work it. I actually haven't found that. It gets more intense as it gets thicker, of course, but I don't find it getting that much darker.


It shows a light goldy shadow in the glass - especially in these small spacers, that I'm not sure if I like or not. I could probably convince myself that I liked it. I wouldn't miss it if it wasn't there!

In fact, it has gone away in this large (1.25 inch) pink ring. Why did I make a large, single colour, transparent pink ring? I don't know either.

Interestingly - this colour is also much more vibrant under the lights of my photography set up - see 1st picture of ring.

And paler in the light of a regular bulb, over by the monitor - see second pic, desaturated to show it's true color in most light.






Interestingly - I ran out of the rod before this was quite finished, and I filled in with a little amethyst and some clear. It's not obvious to casual, or even informed inspection. But when I was cleaning it, and it was underwater - it was very obvious.

Pretty shade of pink, pale rose colour or fuchsia - depending on the lighting. I wonder what other interesting tricks it has up it's sleeve?

Lauscha: Thüringen Salmon

So, having run out of new Vetro and Moretti colours to test - I thought I would (somewhat) systematically work through some of the new, and new to me, Lauscha colours.

This creamy colour is Thüringen Salmon. Thüringen for a region in Germany where Lauscha is located. What an education in geography glass can be, eh? If the salmon there are this colour, they are some mighty unhealthy salmon, IMHO - growing up, as I did, on the west coast where the colour of a salmon gives a mango a run for it's money.

This is a nice, slightly streaky, pale cream with a hint of brown and pinkish undertones. While I use the term too much - a soft cafe au lait - if you add enough cream. Which I do. Lots of cream.

This would be a great goddess colour, or angels, or any natural pale blonde Caucasian skin colour.
Like some other Lauscha colours, it goes tranlucent when heated and cooled without annealing, but annealing strikes it opaque. Annoying, as the translucent quality has so much potential.

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!

CIM Canyon de Chelly - 022

Named for the Canyon de Chelly National Monument (presumably) - you would expect this glass to be streaky and rock-like - and indeed, it is.

The latest batch to arrive is significantly grayer in the rod than the last batch (see pic - new batch is the top paddle). Generally, when there is a big difference in the CIM glass - they designate it as a "unique" - same as the Moretti and Vetro Odd-Lots, and add a -x to the product code. But, this one came with no such notation. The factory applied code is the same.

So, a little comparison was in order. The top mandrel is the new version, the bottom mandrel is the old version.

I would say that the new version gives more intense colours, and develops colour more quickly and easily. The bottom mandrel (old version), the bead on the left was not struck - in went into the kiln virtually white, and the colour that shows developed in the kiln. The bead on the right was struck.

The top mandrel - the bead on the left was not deliberately struck, but it developed colour just by proximity to the flame from striking the next two beads.


This picture is a little underexposed, but shows better the variability and a lot of the subtle colours in the glass. Interestingly, they look almost pink when they go in the kiln, but the end result is more a cafe au lait.

I personally think the new version is more interesting - but if you have a production bead that counts on the colour staying light - you might want to hunt down the old version and stash it.

Fusion Bead Separator - and not much about Krag Mud Separator

A reader wrote: (yes - I have a reader! Woohoo!)

Hi!

I follow your glass review blog obsessively, and just wondered if you have ever tried Fusion bead release or KRAG Mudd. Both are supposed to be excellent, but I, like you, use Dip 'n' Go right now and I'm hesitant to change. Thanks!

Thank you - it's nice to hear that someone checks it out - let alone reads it obsessively!

I use the Fusion bead release ALL the time at the studio where I teach - it's the bead release of choice there. Which is why I use the Dip 'n' Go at home . Fusion is a nice, inexpensive middle of the road release. It's fine for experienced bead makers - who don't abuse the bead release, and those who don't push the envelope by making big complex beads. I find that it can be hard to get the beads off - students struggle with it and frequently get "pot stickers," "plant friends," "cake testers," and other permanently welded-onto-the-mandrel objects.

I like a bead release that releases more easily, and hangs on better after an hour of working. I find the Fusion, if you touch it just a little with a marver while working, breaks up, usually flaking and sticking to the bead - and sticking the bead to the mandrel. And once it starts to go - you're screwed. (Unlike Foster Fire, which can break loose from the mandrel, but remain intact under the glass. I have worked over huge cracks in Foster Fire and still gotten the bead off. And just the other day - I made a bead on a curved mandrel dipped in Foster Fire that I swear, I must have dipped over a year ago! The bead release was sliding off the end by the time I was done - but the bead came off the mandrel just fine!)

And for beads that are worked hard, like the Smircich gravity wave and intense black webbing effect - where you really cook the bead - getting these off the mandrel with the Fusion is a b-----.

It really does need some drying time too - 20 mins or so - before hitting it with the flame.

On the plus side, it's inexpensive and comes in a huge bottle so you can really get a nice long dip - great for mandrels where you are making 10 beads at a time.

It's not a bad choice for a production studio environment, and it is fairly thin - which means it doesn't make the bead hole significantly larger.

It is tougher to get the beads off - the gal at the studio that pulls the beads has had significant issues with carpal tunnel and this may well have been a contributing factor.

I had a sample of the Krag Mudd when it first came out - a minuscule sample - and a set of instructions that seemed to indicate that it should be applied over a previous dip of another bead release - which confused the heck out of me. I think I tried it once - and the sample was so small that was about it - the jar was too short to dip. So it's fair to say that I haven't really tried it.

Really - bead release needs to be packaged in taaaaaall, skinny jars.

Smooth and Tuff - Not!

Oh dear. Another bead release that I don't like. I am sooooo sorry, but the new "Smooth and Tuff" - I have never met a more inappropriately named product. This stuff is neither smooth, nor tough. It's texture is like it has grit dumped into it - bigger than sand, smaller than pebbles - mostly. Have you ever worked with clay that has ground fired clay mixed into it for strength and texture? This is exactly what this is like - lumpy and gritty. And the lumps show on the dipped mandrels - smooth? Ha! This is soooo not smooth!

As for tough! The stuff flakes and peels and breaks off the mandrel before you've finished winding the glass! Argh.

I try to be fair, so maybe this is a bad batch that got cooked in transit. No, wait, mine was hand-delivered direct from a show. Maybe it doesn't like flying. Anyway - I'm going back to my old favourite - Dip 'n' go.

Nessie Ice is Nice

Nessie Ice it's called - and the rods vary, some look black, some are a dark blue/green.

It is a very dark colour, too dark to use by itself, see spacer on far left. Laying over white reveals it's true nature, green with tendrils of blue, like swimming through an underwater weed bed - which is a very bizarre sensation, btw, if you haven't tried it. The soft touches of the weeds are almost reassuring, like they are holding you up, but in the back of your mind is every horror movie you've seen where the diver gets snagged and pulled to the bottom to be eaten by a giant mutant tentacled creature.

But I diverge. ;-)





The larger bead is a clear core, Nessie Ice, encased in clear, and mashed. This shows it's streaky nature well, and the bubbles, a result of my hasty casing, enhance the effect. A few fish murrine on top, and you'd be good to go!

CIM 351 Stone Ground

My first thought, when seeing this glass for the first time, was that it reminded me of the Effetre/Moretti Yellow Opal.


My second thought is that it would strike, as it cools out of the flame to an almost white, and re-introducing it to the flame brings back the colour - but it obviously kiln strikes as well, as these two beads came out of the kiln virtually identical. The one on the left was struck to light brown, and the one on the right went into the kiln w/o any reheating, nearly white in colour.

As it reminded me of Yellow Opal, I tried fuming it - the left end of the bead is fumed with silver, and the right end with gold.

You can see that it has developed a lovely warm, nutty brown, a little more so on the gold-fumed end. Not really the same as fumed opal yellow - which goes more pinky.

It's a nice earthy colour, and worth playing with if you are working with an earthtone colour palette.

CIM 448 Dirty Martini

An odd and intriquing colour - Dirty Martini seems like such an inauspicious name, but yet . . . it seems to fit.

The rod has an interesting shimmer to it - which is not manifest in the bead. The colour itself could best be described as a greeny-grey.







The bead on the left is encased in clear.


The goldy green version was fumed with gold, and went a very nice colour.

An intriguing colour - not so much "pretty" as some, but a good background or base colour and it looks like it might bear more experimentation.