Test Results :: White (Ornela)

Ornela Chalk White (PO0300) is a very soft white opaque glass with good opacity. It is less reactive than other whites, and a little more expensive than Effetre White and CiM Peace. Ornela is also known as 'Czech' glass, as it is manufactured in Czechoslovakia.

This is the first Preciosa Ornela glass colour that I've ever used. I had been hesitant to try Ornela because of all of the noise out there about its compatibility, and I guess I am still feeling cautious since this is only one colour, but I don't see anything to be nervous about in this one. Months after having made these beads, they're still all without flaw.

If you are in the market for some Ornela colours and you're in North America, Laura Walters imports it and sells it on her website, here: https://squareup.com/market/magpiesglasscache

Chalk White doesn't change colour when you reduce it.

Unlike other white glasses, Chalk White doesn't turn yellow with the addition of silver.

With my reducing silver glass frit, a bit of faint yellow fume appeared, but nothing very substantial. My striking silver glass didn't do much on top of Chalk White.

And this picture shows how inert this colour really is. There is a little bit of separation in it on top of Copper Green and Tuxedo, but even that reaction isn't very strong.

I didn't make any other beads with Chalk White, but I am definitely going to keep it in mind in the future. It will be useful that there is a White that is less reactive.

Test Results :: White (Reichenbach)

Reichenbach White (RL1200) is an opaque white glass that loses its opacity when used in thin layers. It's also a colour with compatibility challenges, because I did not manage in any of my testing to find a single colour that it does not crack with. The batch of it that I had is not compatible with Effetre Black, CiM Tuxedo, Double Helix Zephyr, or any of the other colours I've tried it with in these test beads. It's not very interesting reaction-wise apart from some pretty fuming with silver, and it's easily four times the price of Effetre White. You can make up your own mind, but I'll pass on more.

I did make and photograph these test beads, though, so I may as well show them to you.

Reducing this colour does not change it.

Like Effetre White and CiM Peace, Reichenbach White fumes a pretty colour of yellow when used with silver.

It's not evident in the picture, but the bead on the right, where I encased the silvered Reichenbach White, cracked. It cracked along the mandrel line, so at first I thought maybe it was a viscosity problem between the white and the clear layer. But then, a couple of weeks after I made these beads (and after my glass review article had been submitted to Glass Bead Evolution), I noticed that every single bead I made with this White and at least one other colour had cracked. To be fair, I didn't try it with very many colours -- just the ones seen here plus some beads I made with CiM Tuxedo and Effetre Black -- but every single one of the beads where Reichenbach White was not all by itself had tiny hair-thin cracks surrounding the other colour details.

The bead where I used silver with this colour but did not encase it was a survivor and is actually sort of attractive, so if you have any of this colour lying around and want to use it up, single-coloured beads with silver seems like a good, safe way to do it.

Silver glass reduced on this colour fumes the White a soft yellow. My TerraNova2 frit didn't do much on top of it. Neither of these test results matter much in light of the compatibility issues.

Reichenbach White is not very reactive, and there is really nothing to say about it here from that perspective, however you can see how much it loses its opacity in thin layers when you look at how it behaved over Tuxedo.

Test Results :: Middle Blue

Reichenbach Middle Blue (RL3018) is a pretty light aqua. The rods I had seemed to be seeded with itty bitty bubbles, which I found a little odd. There were too many, too consistently through the rods for it to be an accident (or maybe not?) and the result is sort of pretty, unless what you want is a smooth, bubble-free transparent aqua.

This colour, or at least this batch of this colour, was very stiff -- much stiffer than the other transparents I've tried from this line. Possibly because of this difference in viscosity, I had some dramatic incompatibility issues with this colour, which you'll see as we go through the tests.

Middle Blue darkens a little if you reduce it. I was trying to get it to turn red, but it refused to do that.

The left half of this bead was Effetre Light Aqua, and the right half was Reichenbach Middle Blue. You can see a compatibility crack around the middle of this bead where the two colours meet.

Middle blue is not terribly reactive with silver, although I got some yellow fuming in the middle bead which may be as much due to the Clear as the Middle Blue.

The middle bead is a core of Middle Blue, rolled in silver, and encased with Effetre Clear after reducing the silver. I'm not sure you can see all of the cracks in the bead from the picture above, so I included a photo of the bead in the two pieces that it divided itself into, below.

This kind of cracking can only be from incompatibility, so this batch of Middle Blue is clearly not a great fit for using with other 104 CoE colours unless you can find some with a comparably stiff viscosity. If you do plan use this colour with other glasses, make sure you do some pre-production testing first.

Middle Blue was not particularly interesting with either my reduction frit blend or my TerraNova2 frit.

Middle Blue is not a very reactive colour, but I did get some dark line reaction with Ivory. The most interesting thing about this reaction was that it happened when I used the Middle Blue on top of the Ivory, but not when I used the Ivory on top of the Middle Blue. I think this is because the reaction is fairly gentle and happens where the two colours meet, but isn't strong enough to wrap the edges. It's only visible through the Middle Blue because it is transparent.

I didn't make any surviving beads with this colour. I tried a goddess with some frit, but it is cracked all through. here's a photo of it anyway.