Test Results :: Maple

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - Over Clear, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf, 5 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 6 - As Frit Stringer (silver glass frit), 7 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 8 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 9 - As a Floral (over white), 10 - w/ Copper Green, 11 - w/ Ivory, 12 - w/ Opal Yellow, 13 - w/ Black

General Impressions
CiM Maple is a gorgeous, dark brown transparent. It does not tend towards orange the way the Effetre Topazes do, and it avoids being super-reactive the way Effetre Light Brown Transparent is. It is not completely non-reactive, but the reactions are not very dramatic, either. Maple is a fairly stable colour.

The colour of Maple after melting it is FAR DARKER than the rod colour would lead you to believe.  The unmelted rod colour is similar to how Maple looks when it is applied over Clear, but once melted the colour of Maple significantly darkens.

Maple has a beautiful consistency, and is a nice, stiff transparent colour to work with. It also doesn't bubble easily, unless you overheat it in a determined sort of way. I did get a few bubbles in my Maple dots on various beads, so I'll be more careful not to overheat my stringer next time I use Maple.

Maple lightens up considerably over Clear or White, and doesn't lose its essential 'brownness' when it does so.

Reactions

The silver reaction that I got with Maple is sort of a first for me.  The melted in Silver Leaf in the bead on the left has turned a strange rose colour.  Leaf, reduced and encased in the bead on the right didn't do much of note.  It does have an interesting, eggshell look to it though.

In the bead on the right, the silver glass frit blend has acquired a nice shine, and some of the pieces have developed a bit of an inner halo.

In the bead on the left, I took a gather of maple, dipped it in the silver glass frit blend and pulled it into thick stringer.  I then used that stringer to encase a base bead of Maple and then encased the whole thing in Effetre Clear. I got a moderate level of streaky visual interest in the resulting bead.  I say moderate, because this is what I'm usually hoping for when I do this test:

Maple was unremarkable with TerraNova2 frit, so I won't talk about that.

The Copper Green in this bead is unusually shiny, an effect that I am blaming on the Maple.

Over Ivory, Maple separates just a little and seems a bit streaky. Ivory seems to get a little shadow around it on top of Maple, but it is not a significant reaction.

Here's a fun bead with Maple.