Identifying curdled ivory

[EaglesLegacy]

I used a new rod of dark ivory this morning and when I was heating it up, the molten part of the rod looked curdled (like cottage cheese). It reacted in the flame almost immediately, more than I would have preferred, actually. Does this sound like a curdled ivory? It was unmarked (I bought all my glass second hand and most of my glass is unmarked)

[Carolyn M]

I would want to see what it looked like after it comes out of the kiln.

[EaglesLegacy]

Hi Carolyn,
I don't have a kiln yet. Sadly, all my beads go straight into a jewelry box awaiting the day they will be annealed properly. Also, the bead I made with it is mostly covered in frit. Maybe I should set this rod aside for now?

[Elegance_1]

A picture of the rod would work. The end that's been melted can tell quite a story!

[lunamoonshadow]

hmm...you're fritting ivory? effetre frit? or something you want the black line reaction on?
(I don't do much frit-on-ivory because of the black line edges that ~96 frit usually makes on ivory effetre/moretti glass...but that's just me :D)

[maren]

IMHO covering it with frit is a waste of curdled ivory. Some frit is one thing, covering it is quite another.

[EaglesLegacy]

I can take a pic of the rod, but I'm now thinking it's not. When I pulled my bead out, the ivory base looked just plain fried, so I'm thinking the over-reaction of the ivory was just my torch too high, but I'm not sure about the curdled look the rod had when I was using it.

Maren, I totally agree with you. But this was an unmarked rod, and I use ivory as the base of alot of my beads. This just looked completely different in the flame than any of the other ivory rods I've used, so that's what made me wonder. When I discover a cool rod amongst my many unmarked (secondhand) rods, I usually set it aside for when I'm better, or use it only for stringers.

This is a pic of my dark ivory rods
173702

And a bead I did not fry made out of the same rod. I used hair-fine moss agate stringer on the top.
173703

[NLC Beads]

Vetrofond dark ivory - does it look translucent? One batch looked like that...

[EaglesLegacy]

Nikki, yes. The parts of the bead that are that rich caramel color actually look like they are buried in the bead 1-2 mm, and covered in clear. It's a cool effect.

[NLC Beads]

The batches of translucent Vetro dark ivory I have react nicely, too - the rods can look like a transparent honey color to an ivory color, sometimes with rings of both? It seems to look like what your rods look like. It's not curdled ivory, but it is another odd batch that's fun to play with. :)

[EaglesLegacy]

Cool. Should I set this aside then? Or save it for stringer? You are good at identifying, btw. I should take a pic of all my unmarked rods. I bought about 50 rods or so second hand when I first got started a year ago, and probably 80% were unmarked. Fortunately, my IB had a SKU on it, so I was able to look it up and identify it. At least my seller had clearly marked 104COE apart from 96COE.

[NLC Beads]

I'm an ivory junkie... :hide: I don't think there's as huge of a demand for it as other colors - I'd just use it. It has a different reaction with silver, I'm not sure what right now, but each ivory reacts a bit differently anyway... (Moretti vs. Vetro, light vs. dark.)

We like the name that color game, post away. :lol: I love the studio buyouts to stock with, I've discovered colors that I may not have been interested in that way!

[echeveria]

That does look more like that caramel looking batch of Vetro dark ivory to me too.