Czech Tourmaline Pink; secrets?

[chrissij]

Okay...I succumbed and purchased the Tourmaline pink everyone raved about...so...

I pulled a stringer; I can see at the tip of the rod that it did strike to a "pinkish" color...the stringer, not so much, but that's half expected...I've topped white, pink, and periwinkle with it and nothing...nada...but (and this may be my imagination) I seem to have pink on the outer edges of where I placed the dot...or it could be frit...but I don't think so, oh well...WHO KNOWS THE SECRET CODE?!?!

Chris

[suzanne]

the secret is this......


It's a striking color. Stringerwork is very hard to strike, but a base bead is real easy. Just make your bead and let it cool (quite long) and then heat it up again at the tip of your flame. You should get a dark orange glow, and there you have it, the prettiest fuchsia pink.

Also, when you use Tourmaline pink as a base bead to decorate, it strikes almost by itselve by just beeing under the flame as you decorate. Also, you might want to try pressing the bead and fire pollising it. THis way the chrystals in the glass develope to a gorgeous pink. I find this particular pink harder to strike when it is used to encase a base bead. The less you use, the harder it is to strike.

Also , you might want to try reducing it once, it turns into a beautifull golden oily pink!

( this works excelent for stringers, even raised)

Good luck! Suzanne

[chrissij]

Thank you...so, I guess that makes it "not a good substitute" for rubino as the transparent for flowers...drat...

Okay, I'll play more later, but a bead made entirely of pink? Definitely not a "me" bead...

Chris

[SuzyQ]

I tried it to substitue rubino and it is harder to strike. But it can be done. I wonder if you struck the end of the rod and then pulled the stringer if it would work better? Does it ever loose the color once it is struck? I should really pull mine out and play with it some more. I'm getting low on the good rubino.

[misfit]

I on the other hand have had fair to good luck getting stringer work of it to strike by working way way out in the flame where It looks like its not getting any heat at all. it strikes in small amounts very cool. if the dots ect start to glow it'll be be a wash and need to be started over. It seems to prefer not to be melted all the way in as stringer work. ;)
I have crap luck getting it to strike evenly as large beads ( in other words no two end up the same color) Don't pull your stringers too thin either. you do want some mass for the stringer work to strike to a deeper color. tiny amounts just barely blush.
Also you can't encase it. I've been told that itty bitty tiny amounts of it can be encased- but since they don't strike well I'm not sure what the point in that would be. Nothing seems to work for encaseing it- they always seem to crack.

A.

oh its gorgeous to encase white with- either as a bead or to pull a stringer to do raised work.