Bead Colors

[foster1717]

Hi all,

I'm new to bead making. Have a hot head and been practicing melting rods, making rounds beads, etc., but there is one thing that kind of puzzles me (well there are a lot more things than just one, but I just have to take on one thing at a time).

I notice (especially with an irovy rod) if I keep the rod in, what I call the hot part of the flame, the bead and frit turns a dark gray when it cools. If I keep the bead out further in the flame, which it seems to take forever to melt, the color of the bead comes out ivory.

So this is my question, actually there are two questions: 1. Are the ivory rods turning gray because I'm getting them too hot? When I upgrade my torch (I've already decided to go with the little dragon) which burns hotter than the HH,..... 2. If I'm getting the bead too hot with the HH, what will happen when I get a hotter torch?

This question sounds stupid [-X , because I know everyone wants more heat...so there must be another reason.

Thanks

[Hothead Beads]

I worked on a HH for four years and you can't work close to the torch head. You need to move father out in the flame to not burn the color.
When you upgrade, the torch will most likely also use oxygen, which will make the flame hotter but it won't burn your colors.
Does this make sense??

[AnnDK]

I did that too in the beginning (which will be just about 2 months ago). You're burning the glass. Some colours are very sentitive to heat, others aren't. That goes for both opale and tranparent colours.
Do as Teri says, move a bit out in the flame and it'll be just fine.

:D Ann

[Emily]

Difficult to say exactly what's going on without seeing what you're doing and what the beads look like, but my guess is that you're working too close to the torch head and the glass is getting dirty because the flame is too reducing. A reducing flame is one that has a higher proportion of fuel than oxygen (as opposed to a neutral flame, in which the proportions of fuel and oxygen are balanced). On any torch, the closer you move to the torch head, the more reducing your flame gets. The HotHead flame tends to be a little bit reducing anyway, even when you're working at the right place in the flame. Some colors of glass actually change color when they're in a reducing flame. (There aren't many of these colors in Effetre/Moretti glass -- rubino/gold ruby is one, and it gets very ugly when reduced, so be careful with it.) Ivory isn't one of them, though. However, a reducing flame can be dirty because of unburned carbon (soot), and I think what may be happening is that it's just showing up more on ivory because it's a light color. Are you getting grayish or brownish streaks in your clear, too? If so, that's from a dirty flame. If the streaks in the clear were a more whitish gray, and looked fizzy (lots of tiny tiny bubbles when you looked really close), that would be a sign that you were overheating the glass. You would actually be boiling the clear. The fix is the same in either case -- move farther away from the head of the torch. It's a natural tendency to bring your work closer toward yourself when you're concentrating -- you keep inching closer, and before you know it you're right up against the end of the torch.

If you're noticing a lot of bubbling of the glass, particularly the transparents, you may be overheating the glass. If you notice big bubbles right after you put glass on the mandrel, it probably means you didn't preheat your bead release enough. After that, if you notice bubbles, or if you notice a lot of little bubbles, you may be overheating. (Some colors, like the transparent aquamarines, want to bubble no matter what you do. They're just evil that way.) Overheating usually doesn't cause color change, though.

You mentioned frit and ivory. Are you using reduction frit with ivory? If you are, that's your problem. It's not your torch or your heat. I don't know enough about glass chemistry to know which metals in the glass cause the reaction, but the frits that reduce -- that go shiny and metallic in a reduction flame -- react with ivory and make it go dirty gray or brown. The more you heat it, the worse it gets. Unlike the reaction between the Effetre greens (for example) and ivory, this reaction isn't always limited to the edge where the two types of glass touch. The gray crud can cover the surface of the ivory even if you just have bits or dots of the reduction glass on a much larger bead. I think, although I'm guessing here, that the metal from the reduction frit may be fuming the ivory glass. I've tried to find an ivory that doesn't do this, and haven't completely succeeded, although Vetrofond light ivory is less susceptible to going gray and dirty than the other ivories I've used. (If you're not careful with your heat, even Vetro light ivory will look like it's been playing hide-and-seek in the attic -- and a nice hot bath will NOT put everything right.) If you're using any frit that says it reduces, or a frit mix that's 94 or 96 COE and you're not sure what's in it, and your ivory is going gray or brown, it might be a reaction between the frit and the ivory. (If you can get a completely reducing flame on the HotHead, you can try to see if the frit goes metallic. I know there are ways people shut off the air intakes on HotHeads, but I've never done it.)

Another frit culprit might be rubino (a/k/a gold ruby, a/k/a gold pink) and ivory. They don't like each other, and turn gray if you let them touch. They do the same thing with the spreading gray dirt, even where they're not directly touching, and no, nobody's ever told me what component of the two glasses causes the crud. I found this out the hard way by making an ivory goddess with rubino nipples. It wasn't pretty. Do I need to give you a visual? :oops: So if you're using a frit with hot pink in it, that could be giving you gray. I'm not sure if the effect happens on anything other than ivory. I had something really hideous happen with a gold pink frit on an odd batch of coral once, but I never tried anything like that again, and I'm not drawing any conclusions from it.

Good luck!

[foster1717]

Thanks all for your answers.

Emily, I'm not sure what reduction frit is. I'm using 104 COE rods & frit (corral green is what I was using with the Ivory). I due notice black stuff on the ends of my rods after I burn off.

[artsyuno]

I've had problems with burnt glass and discoloration on my HH that I haven't had when taking classes using a minor. My guess is that you won't have as much of a problem when you get your oxycon torch.