Test Results :: Opal Orange

Reichenbach Opal Orange (RL6214) is a not-quite-but-almost-opaque bright orange. Used on top of other colours in a single layer, the resulting dots and lines have good opacity, but if you reheat this colour, the very topmost layer gets a slight translucency that is quite interesting.

Here, you can see that Opal Orange is a bit of a striker. The bead that I reduced (on the right) is a deeper orange than the one that did not receive the additional heat exposure.

Silver fumes Opal Orange to a darker hue. On top of Opal Orange, silver leaf takes on a golden-iron appearance. The bead on the right where I reduced and encased the silver is a snowy white with touches of blue under the clear layer.

On top of Opal Orange, my silver glass frit seemed to migrate a bit towards the bead's centre in both tests. My reducing silver glass frit looks darker on top of this colour than on others I've used the same blend on. I got nice colours from TerraNova2 frit on top of this colour.

The only real reaction I observed in these beads was the dark line that formed between Copper Green and Opal Orange, and a very slight amount of separation in it on top of Tuxedo.

Here are some beads made with Opal Orange:

Test Results :: Buttermilk

CiM Buttermilk (CiM315) is a very pale, opaque yellow. It strikes in the flame, blushing a little more yellow as you work it, but doesn't darken significantly. The consistency of it is beautiful, and my rods of Buttermilk were not shocky. Like Bone, this colour fills a gap in my palette that has been open since Vetrofond stopped making us nice pale neutrals.

Here you can see that where I gave Buttermilk an extra shot of heat in a reduction flame, it got a little more yellow. I don't think this is due to the reducing nature of the flame I reheated it in - it warms in colour in a neutral flame as well.

The addition of silver yellows Buttermilk substantially. When the silver is reduced and encased, it does not develop any unusual colours or effects.

Silver glass is pretty on top of Buttermilk. Because Buttermilk is not particularly reactive with silver, it makes a good base for reducing silver glass frit on. I also got a nice starting strike here on my TerraNova2 frit, which tells me that this colour has some promise as a base for striking silver glass as well.

Copper Green separates on top of Buttermilk, ,becoming darker in the middle of stringer dots and lines. Buttermilk separates on top of both Tuxedo and Copper Green. On the whole, this colour is not very reactive and I found it to be quite stable.

Here are some other beads that include Buttermilk.

Test Results :: Canoe

CiM Canoe is a gorgeous, tawny striking brown. People who make sculptural animal beads are going to go nuts for this colour, since it is decidedly lion-coloured. It's also really well-suited to organic bead designs, because it's fabulously reactive without any of those reactions causing unpleasant blackening and muckiness.

This colour is a striking colour. These spacers were made at the same time, but the rightmost one got an extra blast of heat in a reduction flame before being popped into the kiln, resulting in a darker, warmer colour.

Here is Canoe with Kugler Beadmaking 104 Silver Petrol (previously known as ASK Silver Rattan), CiM Pumpkin Unique #1, ASK Caramel Apple (now known as Iris Savanne), Kugler Silver Brown (previously known as ASK Silver Cinnamon), and CiM Stone Ground.

ASK Silver Brown, in this picture, looks almost the same colour as Canoe, but I don't think that Canoe, even with the addition of silver, strikes to as dark a colour as Silver Brown does. Canoe is substantially browner and darker than Stone Ground.

The addition of silver darkens the colour of Canoe. When I reduced and encased silver leaf with Zephyr on top of Canoe, my bead cracked. The crack is an incompatibility crack, occurring both lengthwise and across the bead hole. So, encase this colour with caution, and maybe not with Zephyr and silver.

Oh my, this colour is gorgeous with silver glass. My silver glass reduction frit bloomed like crazy on top of this colour, engulfing the Canoe between the fritty bits. I also got beautiful colour from my TerraNova2 frit, which spread like crazy on top of this colour.

I had hoped that, since this colour was so much like the ASK browns both in the rod and in small beads, that it would have similar reactions. It doesn't, which is a bit sad since our last Kugler Beadmaking 104 vendor here in North America has recently decided to discontinue their sales of 104 CoE glass entirely. However, this colour is very interestingly reactive in its own right.

When Tuxedo is used on top of this colour, the Canoe rises up in halos around the Tuxedo stringerwork.

Canoe and Copper Green have a mutual separation thing -- it separates on top of Copper Green, asnd Copper Green separates on top of it. In both cases, a faint brownish line forms around the colour that is on top.

Canoe and Opal Yellow also mutually separate when used on top of one another. Where Canoe is on Opal Yellow, the separation is almost violent, looking fissure-like in the middle of the stringer lines. Opal Yellow separates a bit more gently, and spreads like crazy on top of Canoe.

On top of Ivory, Canoe looks darker than it does on top of other colours, and a dark line froms around its dots and stringer lines. The Ivory also bleeds into it, feathering at the edges of the Canoe decoration. Ivory separates on top of Canoe, and becomes surrounded by a dark Canoe halo.

Peace spreads on top of Canoe, but does not otherwise react with it.

Here is an organic bead made using Canoe both as the base colour and as part of the surface decoration.

Test Results :: Multicolor Dark

Reichenbach Multicolor Dark (RL6206) is a reactive striking colour. It is relatively easy to strike. The rods are a reddish purple colour, they go transparent when heated, and then turn green as they cool, then striking to blue, purple, and sometimes even a reddish colour.

You can see here that reducing the Multi Dark doesn't make it shiny and doesn't cloud it up the way Raku behaves when reduced. Here, it just advanced the colour of the glass into the purple hues.

I have noticed that in order to strike this colour, you need to let it get fairly cool and then give it a thorough, deliberate reheating. I was not able to screw it up -- no matter how I did it, I still got great colour, so that's a huge point in its favour.

I've now had two different versions of Multi Dark - or at least they seem different based on the appearance of the unmelted rods.

Both of the goddesses below are solid Multi Dark.  The top one was made with the darker rods and the bottom one was made with the older, paler-rodded variety. Maybe the newer, darker-rodded batch gives more deep blues, but it's also possible that these two beads received a different amount of heat, were cooled a different number of times, etc. This is a seriously beautiful colour, and no matter what batch of it you have, it's great glass.

  

On top of Multi Dark, silver disperses such that it's not really apparent on the surface. In so doing, it seems to inhibit the natural colours of the glass, or maybe just cover them up. When the silver is reduced and encased, it forms a solid layer through which you cannot see much of the base bead.

Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Peace all separate on top of Multi Dark, and Multi Dark does not inhibit the sheen that develops on top of Copper Green.

Ivory forms a dark line reaction and turns a dark greyish brown around the edges of the dots and stringer lines when used on top of Multi Dark, and it also seems to separate. When Multi Dark is used on top of Ivory, it gets a dark outline and fumes the base ivory a brownish colour.

Here are some other beads made with Multicolor Dark.

Test Results :: Gold Ruby Light

This is Reichenbach Gold Ruby Light (RL2013), a light to medium transparent pink.

For me, this colour ended up anywhere from completely colourless to a pretty, deep medium pink colour. It's a striking colour, and I had some trouble getting decent colour out of it in my smaller beads, which is my problem and probably not an issue with the glass.

I found this colour very difficult to strike in the small spacers that I made, but it struck a bit more easily for me in my larger test beads.  I found this colour a little bit scummy, and it's also quite stiff. Reducing does not seem to alter its colour or surface finish.

On top of Gold Ruby Light, silver develops a crusty appearance.

I had bad luck encasing a solid mass of this colour - you can see here in the middle bead that one side of the bead just sort of fell off.  It didn't crack in the middle on the mandrel line, so it was definitely a compatibility crack. Like some of the other pinks, I guess this one isn't very encaseable -- maybe due to a viscosity clash with runnier glass. I made another bead with only a thin layer of Gold Ruby Light in it, and kept an eye on it for a few months, and it didn't crack.

In the rightmost bead, you can see that encasing silver foil with Gold Ruby Light turns the silver a golden colour.

I don't have much to say about these beads.  Gold Ruby Light isn't very reactive for a pink and didn't astonish me with it's interaction with silver glass.

The only real reactions that I see in these beads are some separation in the Copper Green and Peace on top of Gold Ruby Light.

Something that I appreciate about Reichenbach Gold Ruby Light is that it doesn't turn Ivory black the way other pinks can, although the pink colour of it is so gentle that it doesn't really show very well on top of it. Reichenbach Gold Violet didn't do it either.  I wonder if Pink Lady does?  I guess I'll find out sometime after I've used up all of my Gold Ruby Light, which is going to take a while since I'm not that into it :)

Test Results :: Carnelian Opalino

Effetre Carnelian Opalino is such a beautiful colour of pink. I find it an easy glass to use, without significant boiling or shocking issues the way people fear with the Opalino colours. Each batch of Carnelian seems to be a bit different, with the most recent batch being beautifully rich in colour.

It's also among a small number of deep pinks that are not antagonistic towards Ivory, because colours like Opal Raspberry, Rubino Oro, Cranberry, and Sedona turn Ivory into a black mess. It's nice that there are a few pinks out there that can be used with Ivory without creating that problem.

Reducing has no specific, unique effect on the colour of Carnelian Opalino, but here when I reduced the bead, reintroducing it to the heat resulted in the colour striking.  Carnelian is a striking pink, and the more times you heat and cool it, the pinker it gets.

In these beads you can see that using silver with Carnelian turns it a bit orange, which is consistent with how I am accustomed to pinks behaving when silver is added. Reducing and encasing the silver made most of the orange go away.

Carnelian is a nice base for silver glass. My reducing silver glass pops on top of it colourwise, mostly because of the good contrast between the yellowed pink and the blue frit. In the rightmost bead, you can see that colour started to bloom early in my TerraNova2 frit, which is a good sign that this is a decent base colour for striking silver glass.

Copper Green separates on top of Carnelian, and when Carnelian is used on top of Copper Green, you can see light lines around the Carnelian as well as a fracturing of the Copper Green into little beads of dark turquoise. Neat.

Opal Yellow also separates on top of Carnelian, and on top of Opal Yellow, Carnelian looks a bit orange. I think this is because it is semi-opaque, and it's the result of the yellow peeking through the pinkness.

There are no real reactions to speak of with Carnelian and Tuxedo, Ivory, or Peace.

Here are some beads made with Carnelian.

Test Results :: Emperor

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 - Over Silver Foil, 8 - In Silver Glass Frit Stringer (encased), 9 & 10 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace

CiM Emperor, to me, is like a slightly subdued, purplish version of CiM Cranberry. The reactions are basically the same as Cranberry, and the basic hue of it is Cranberry-like. Also, this colour gets purpler the more you strike it, which Cranberry doesn't do. The main technical observation that I have about working with Emperor is that it is difficult to get Emperor to strike when it is used in thin layers, but that's not terribly unusual for a striking color.

In this picture, you can see that the bead on the right (which has been reduced, and struck repeatedly in a neutral flame) is far purpler than the bead on the left. Both beads are plain Emperor.

Like Cranberry, Emperor turns silver a yellowish colour. Reducing and encasing silver on Emperor results in a beautiful, blue-mottled iridescence under the clear coat.

And just like with Cranberry, when you put Emperor over silver foil (being careful not to melt it as you melt the top layer in) you get a strange golden brown from the foil underneath the pinkish purple of the colour.

Emperor makes a good base for silver glass. I got nice colour and behaviour from both the reducing and striking colours here.

And as frit stringer with reactive silver glass frit, Emperor does a good job of bringing out the blues and greens of the frit, but the effect is sort of dark and not as dramatic as it is when this technique is used with Effetre Straw Yellow or Light Brown Transparent.

I did not observe anything of note happening between Emperor and Tuxedo

Copper Green separates into two different colours of turquoise when used on top of Emperor.

Opal Yellow separates on top of Emperor and develops a faint three-dimensionality to its look as a result.

On top of Ivory, Emperor turns brown. When Emperor is used as the base colour, Ivory gets a brownish look to it and separates. This reaction is the same as what happens between Ivory and Cranberry except that it is far less wild.

Peace separates quite dramatically on top of Emperor.

These beads are Emperor with Lizard and Wood.