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January 13, 2010

Test Results :: Adamantium

1- Plain, 2 - Reduced, 3 - w/ Silver foil, 4 - w/ Silver Foil - reduced & encased, 5 - w/ Terra frit, 6 - w/ Silver glass frit blend (Gaia, Elektra, Nyx) - reduced, 7 - As a floral, 8 - w/ Ivory, 9 - w/ Copper Green, 10 - w/ Black

General Impressions
CiM Adamantium is smooth, creamy and a dark grey brown.  It's gorgeous with silver glass, and it's beautiful paired with both silvered Dark Ivory and Copper Green.  It doesn't do unpleasant things with either colour, so it also seems very stable.  Adamantium doesn't do nasty things when you reduce it.  What's not to love?

Adamantium is my new very favourite glass for making the ends of my organic bicones.  I'm sure it has other uses, but I've been looking for an alternative to black, which always looks too stark. The colour of Adamantium is just slightly softer, and fabulously complements the silvered Ivory stringer I can't seem to stop using.

I need to apologize for the pressed beads in the big picture, above... and I think I'll need to apologize for the Leaky Pen ones I haven't posted yet, too.  I've been rushing these test beads and not being all that careful about how much glass I am pressing.  How embarrassing!  I will try to be better, since most of the reason I'm using the press for these at all is to practice getting the correct shape.

Reduction
Reducing an Adamantium spacer did not seem to change the colour or the appearance of the bead surface at all. (Bead #2)  Someone on LE told me that Adamantium got all shiny when they reduced it, but that was not my experience.

Reactions
One of the beautiful things about Adamantium is that it doesn't seem to be all that reactive, but the colour of it is so appealing that it doesn't need to be.  Being a fan of organics and loving what reactive colours do to each other when they get all hot and bothered, it's a strange position for me to take, but I stand by it in this case.

Like Tamarind Unique, Adamantium seems to repel silver rather than suck it in like a lot of other glasses, which I need to experiment with a little more.


When I put silver on it, reduced it and encased it, the silver got a bluish ethereal glow around it.  (Bead #4) And when I just left the silver on the surface, it developed a mottled yellowish orange/green crust.  (Bead #3)

I am a little silver-glass-challenged, but I was able to strike Terra frit on Adamantium, and being so dark, it's a great canvas for designs with reduced silver glass, too.  (Beads #5 & #6)  You can see some minor reaction halos around the edges of the silver glass, similar to what I experienced with Tamarind Unique, only a little less violent.


Ivory is one of the softest 104 glasses and the Adamantium bleeds with it a little bit when it's applied to Ivory in stringer.   If I wanted to do stringerwork with a design that was melted flush, and I wanted that design to stay crisp, I'd probably choose a different colour combination to use.


The Ivory spreads a little over Adamantium.  It gets just the faintest amount of translucency in the middle, like when you put Ivory on Black, only less so. (Bead #8)

Adamantium and Copper Green did not react with each other at all for me. (Bead #9) I was a little surprised because of how Copper Green reacts with Lauscha Cocoa -- for some reason, I expected all dark grey browns to be created equal.

When I'm out of Adamantium I am replacing it with Cocoa in my current palette, so I'll make similar beads with both Ivory & Cocoa and Copper Green & Cocoa for comparison purposes.

Some beads with Adamantium:

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