Into every life a little rain must fall... I admit it, it is pouring! I've been really stubborn this week especially so... because I hate to give up.
You know those lovely silver wired beads I've been making? The ones that have the silver wire that's encased and still in wire form? Being like I am, I have - of course - tried it in most of the opaque colors I have on hand it's been great FUN. Some colors are heavenly, some are just meh.... so, we avoid those that don't work, and revel in those that do.
Then I got a special request... to make them in Gerber Daisy Pink... that's one of the elusive colors we all covet... I got down to business.
I tried all the pinks I had in Lauscha, nothing creamy enough... nothing pinky enough... tried all the Moretti ones I had. Nope. Even tried three enamel powders I had but nope - skip the enamels - they messed with the silver... ugh. Then I switched gears and tried some Bullseye pinks *had to dust them off", because I rarely work with Bullseye. Bingo. I mean BINGO. I made about 20, and upon opening the kiln the next day, noticed that about 20 of them cracked in half. I scrounged around and found a clear that I thought might be the key - and made eight more... they survived and are still beautiful!!
I made a special trip to Blue Moon Glassworks to visit Rose and buy some clear to encase that was actually known to be Bullseye (same COE) - and I researched a special annealing schedule for the Paragon for a long slow cool down and got down to business on Monday... hot from the torch into the hot kiln...
The pink is a Bullseye glass: This is an American glass company that is well known in the fusing world. It is a soda-lime glass and the rods are 4 to 5 mm in diameter. The coefficient of expansion is 90. The annealing temperature is 940 degrees and the strain point is 820 degrees. The rods come in opaque, opalescent and transparent as well as frit and stringers. This glass has a slightly stiffer working condition than Effetre. I would like to adjust my annealing schedule a bit - anyone out there work with Bullseye on a regular basis? I have a space for a Bullseye annealing program on the Paragon... want to get it right this time...
AND
Does anyone have any luscious opaque pinks they can point me to? I'm surely open to ideas...
: ) Jill