Attention: Moretti and silver foil users??

[gemmasglassbeads]

this is a similar to the someone that asked about gold leaf, but this is about silver foil??

i make lampwork beads and want to put silver foil on my beads then encase the bead with clear or colored glass evenly without the silver melting off? how to i go about doing so without burning the silver off? Also once the silver is encased and back to it original round bead, am i going to be able to make the bead hot and round enough to reshape it into a focal without burning the silver off??

Thanks, Gemma

I ACTUALLY WANT TO GET THE BEAD TOTALLY RED HOT AGAIN AFTER IT HAS THE SILVER ENCASED INTO THE GLEAR GLASS AND REFLATTEN IT INTO A FOCAL TYPE BEAD????

THANKS!!!!

[Natsprat]

Good question Gemma,

I am a bit silver foil impaired myself, so unfortunately no help at all....... I have sort of given up to a degree from the frustration of it!

Good luck!

Nat :-)

[gemmasglassbeads]

Thanks Nat, i somewjhat have it, it just takes lots of patience, i mean lots....=)

[gemmasglassbeads]

i just checked out your beads, NICE work!!

[beadsoncypress]

Exactly my question too...I signed up for the metals class at PA Beadfest with John winter and he cancelled the class.....darn. Anyhow I hear that he has a VIDEO/DVD of exactly what we want to know.....

[debiweiss]

Susan I took that class last year and it was great and answered that exact question but he will be teaching at Noodlesaurus glass studio in PA in September. The info that I have is that if you keep the bead under the flame and cover the foil with glass without burning in the foil you will have a the shiny look under and you can get the bead hot enough to shape it without loosing that look.
Debi

[mnoelker]

115620
115486

I use this effect a lot in my beads and it just takes a little trial and error working the glass to figure out how hot you can get the transparent over the foil without melting the foil.

When you add the transparent make sure the bead is under the flame keeping the silver away from the flame until it is completely covered by the transparent. Then try to aim the flame at the surface of the glass rather than deep heating the bead as you shape it. Good luck!

[lorleek]

Beautiful Mary!

Lori

[mnoelker]

Thanks Lori! I'm a silver addict lol!

[playswithfire104]

Exactly my question too...I signed up for the metals class at PA Beadfest with John winter and he cancelled the class.....darn. Anyhow I hear that he has a VIDEO/DVD of exactly what we want to know.....

John didn't cancel the class - Beadfest canceled John. He told us about it on FB. He was pretty upset about it too.

[Tesorobeads]

Beautiful beads Mary. This is actually a technique I have tried so I am going to show off one of my beads. I used all transparent turquoise, added the foil and then encased in turquoise.
171665

Debbie

[beadsoncypress]

I have heard that Beadfest does this A LOT....when we were in Reading a couple of years ago I heard it from NUMEROUS artists....swore they'd never go to BF again. Unfortunately those of us on the east coast have very limited choices.

[Sue in Maine]

I have heard that Beadfest does this A LOT....when we were in Reading a couple of years ago I heard it from NUMEROUS artists....swore they'd never go to BF again. Unfortunately those of us on the east coast have very limited choices.

HEY! There is always PLAYING WITH FIRE, my favorite teaching studio in Rockland, Maine, with 10 torch stations and an IMPRESSIVE line up of teachers!

We'd love to see you up here.

Sue

[Shawn T]

Gemma,

What your wanting to do is totally possible.
To insure that you achieve the look your going for here are a few pointers.
Make your base bead and make sure you burnish your silver foil in well. I believe this works better with the foil than the leaf as the foil is thicker and will take more abuse and heat than the leaf will.
To burnish the silver in well, take a graphite marver or other tool and push the silver foil onto your bead to adhear the silver to the bead without any pieces of it hanging off or not stuck well to your base bead.
Once your silver is burnished well to the base bead, then you can encase it in a cool flame keeping your bead out of the flame. It is easier for me to do this by keeping my bead under my flame or off to the side while applying the encasing color. Make sure your base bead is cool and your encasing color is hot, to insure you don't melt your silver away.

Here is a picture of a bead I did quite a few years ago. I used 3 different colors of transparent glass to get different hues, while still leaving the silver intact. I even got the bead hot enough after I was done to use a press to make the final shape.
171952

Hope this helps and best of luck,
Shawn

[cadia]

Pretty Shawn!

[stephl]

You could always try palladium instead of silver foil its much harder to burn away

[Rachel]

Shawn is absolutely correct. You can leave the foil, mesh or whatever on it so long as you don't let the flame hit the foil directly once you have applied it. You have to keep the bead below the flame while applying your clear and then you can put the whole thing back in. Now, sometimes clear on top of silver will appear yellow. That is one issue with silver foil and clear. There are some clears that don't do it and some do. To keep that from happening, I agree with stephl and would use palladium. It will stay a silver color forever without looking yellow but it is leaf and harder to work with. But, you are safe if you use a colored transparent for sure even if it is very light like Shawn showed on her lovely bead. I use palladium when I really want the silver to stay and look good and I don't want to worry about that yellow business but everyone has their own methods.

[maroli]

When I began to play with silver foil I used the booklet "Spotlight on silver (http://www.frantzartglass.com/images/219152%20actual.JPG)" but the reply of Shawn is a very good description of the technique.


Here some beads I made

172044

172045

172047 172048

[maroli]

Just remember one thing (may be it is very common reaction but 2 years ago I was very exciting by the reaction ... )

One reaction that I love with silver : Rosalin glass change in contact of silver for gold color.
Here a exemple (not a good bead but you can see the gold color)



172049

[Oh Honey]

this is a similar to the someone that asked about gold leaf, but this is about silver foil??

i make lampwork beads and want to put silver foil on my beads then encase the bead with clear or colored glass evenly without the silver melting off? how to i go about doing so without burning the silver off? Also once the silver is encased and back to it original round bead, am i going to be able to make the bead hot and round enough to reshape it into a focal without burning the silver off??

Thanks, Gemma

I ACTUALLY WANT TO GET THE BEAD TOTALLY RED HOT AGAIN AFTER IT HAS THE SILVER ENCASED INTO THE GLEAR GLASS AND REFLATTEN IT INTO A FOCAL TYPE BEAD????

THANKS!!!!

The totally red hot all the way through is the issue silver goes poof when it gets this hot. It tolerates getting hot and mashing but not white hot. Go orange and mash a little at a time if you have to.

[Oh Honey]

Gold is much more durable if you get too hot for silver.

Dave

[gemmasglassbeads]

Thanks Everyone for your awesome tips...been a while since i have been back on here...i have worked quit a bit with double helix and am getting my silver effect i wanted, no messing with the foil...selling great over here in Pensacola Floridas downtown Palafox Market!!!!! Thanks again to all...Good Luck in your bead ventures!!!!!

Gemma.....www.gemmasglassbeads.us...working on fixing my darn shopping cart=)

[gemmasglassbeads]

www.gemmasglassbeads.us

[JavaGirlBT]

If you do burn off foil under an encasement of clear, it makes little speckles of silver that looks like stars. I used to do this for my landscape beads.212659

[Beadanna]

That is beautiful Ellen!

[Rareripes]

I agree with Anna,Ellen,that is one beauuutiful bead!