CIM - which colors are too shocky?
 

I recently purchased a nice sampling of Messy Color glass. Love the color palette.

But some colors are really, really shocky. Like frit on a stick. I'm not opposed to using pain in the patootie glass but want to be informed.

My recent discoveries were:
Smurfy
Olive

Please share.

I don't buy the limited colors, but the couple I have, alley cat and one other I can't recall were very shocky. Honestly I think they mostly all are now :confused:
Haven't been happy with the quality for awhile. Not only shocky but some colors are just way off, Canyon de Chelle isn't as nice and it's only one tone now...baby poo, and Phoenix doesn't strike, it's just hot orange.

Opals mostly too, Marshmallow, Crocus, eggplant etc Anything that looks translucent are the opals (opalinos for italian glass)

I find a lot of them are shocky for me. I always preheat in the kiln and pull as I need. PITA but they still have a lot of nice colors. I did notice that about Phoenix too, it used to work well with frit also, but not so much now. :(

That's surprising. It's not exactly inexpensive glass. I don't buy a lot of it, just what I use by itself or together with another CIM mostly (trust issues with it, I've had incompatibility). But I haven't had any shocky ones...haven't bought any lately though.

Right, and they were so big on quality control before. It honestly seemed to have changed when they went to limiteds only and slowly getting worse. It's depressing to watch rods just explode all over your bench when you know you just plunked a good chunk o' change on it.

Other posts here from others about quality
http://lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=302785


And here is one of phoenix with pics.
http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...hlight=phoenix

Limited colors only now?? And pricey frit on a stick as well. Yeah...no. Not for me.

I wonder if annealing the glass rods that do the frit thing would help it be less explosive. I have none or I'd try it.

I did run some BUs Stop or whatever thru the annealing cycle. Seemed to help. I will do some others but I have enuf glass for now.

Odd, I haven't really had any issues with CiM, except Marshmallow.

I find it is a lot of the newer ones. It is hard to predict now. Previously, I didn't have many problems, either. But starting with Moccasin and Autumn, ...yikes. I love those colors too, so I will persevere. I suppose "too shocky" is all relative.

I have tried annealing but it doesn't help the ones I put in, Olive is the one that just blows up actually pretty violently, it won't remove the air bubbles every 1/4 inch too which is another problem.

No, I mean they still have their oldies that they restock, but they're not making any new colors as regulars which is a shame.

It seems like it can vary per rod at times. Some rods are less shocky than others. I do love the colors though, especially Oyster Mushroom, Chai, and Mocassin.

Although this week, I had one Oyster Mushroom rod where half the rod exploded on me, didn't matter where it was in the flame. Now it is in my bowl of water so I don't forget not to use it again.

Okey do key then.

Thank you all.

Autumn blasted all over me! And I prewar. Geesh

Welp. This makes me sad.

I purchased based on my experience with it long ago as a COE 96 glass and totally loved it's melting qualities. Silly me for thinking all would be similar now.

Thanks again. Preheat it is.

Still love some of the colors.

I used it almost exclusively, switched out much of my italian colors for it, that I could anyways. They weren't like this before with 104.
I too love the colors, I won't stop buying (except for limiteds), but I am saving the rods that are just shit and I will send them back, it might help if more did it. I have almost a half pound of Olive at this point, I wouldn't keep other crap items, why glass rods?

I find it with Italian too now, I'm not sure why quality goes down, mixing too much and air gets in? Pulling too fast? I don't understand because I don't know how to make glass, but something has changed in the last couple years.

I've never had a problem with any color I've tried, but I tend or warm them in the flame at a pretty conservative rate.

We were talking about this recently, A lot of the colours I purchase blow up on me all the time, it's getting very frustrating.

Blow up is the perfect description.

I generally start about 5 or 6 inches from the torch head but after my first attempt, I reached as far as I could see a tail of flame and it still broke off in chunks.

Bigger pieces but still not on my mandrel as a bead, you know?

I may very well spend the time to collect them and send them back. As an fyi.

Yes Betsy that's exactly what's happening to me especially with the last batch I received of Autumn, it's a very expensive glass and every time I try and heat it a bit it explodes, I have to stick the rod to a thick mandrel and hope that when the rod explodes the chunk stays stuck to the mandrel to pull into stringers, that's all I can do with it.

CIM should test their glass, if it's too shocky they should discount it, at the moment it's getting ridiculous.

Regis, I so agree. It's dangerous. Has hit my face, arms, and down my front with a t-shirt on. And that was after preheating.

I just had the same problem with a rod of the new opal yellow. It literally exploded all the way to the bottom, and it was a thin rod and by the way the new opal yellow is NOTHING like the old.

Yes, as I've said Italian glass is going the same route :/

Was just thinking about this, why not sell as seconds? Limiteds are imo just them "playing", it's no longer tested as it was, it should be seconds and priced as such.
For those that talk about prewarming, this is what some of us mean that you cannot, and when I said it gets violent it does, I have scars from weeks and weeks ago. It's not a matter of introducing slowly, or prewarming in a kiln, it just randomly does it as you're working. My table has a huge mountain of 1/4 inch pieces. Sometimes you can direct it away from you, but it's unstable in how it randomly blows.

This is scary to hear! My old CiM has always been a dream to melt. I've recently gotten some new, but haven't had a chance to work with it yet. Now I'm afraid!

How do we alert CIM?

I think there is a contact form on the website.

Celadon has always been bad for me, and Autumn is just about worthless---I've tried leaving rods in the kiln to anneal, but it doesn't help.

Batches can definitely vary in "shockiness" Fremen used to be my go-to turquoise but my last batch was impossible to use. If there are colors that I want but have had issues with I will order them from Frantz with the note not to pull any rods larger than 6mm diameter. They have been very accomodating and I have found that using the smaller diameter makes a difference- perhaps fewer hidden inclusions/bubbles?

I sent them an email asking to weigh in here.

The tip about tiny rods is great, thank you.

This was the email from 2015 when they went to limiteds, was "Frost' the last of the regular (non limited) colors?


"Dear Friend of Messy Color,

As many of you know, we had a large USA shipment detained by Chinese Customs for almost a year. In our scramble to reproduce and ship everything in that shipment again, we had very little time to intentionally make new colors. Our Ltd Runs in 2014 were largely mis-melts of old colors we were trying to reproduce to keep up with demand.

When that shipment was finally released and arrived in the USA last fall, we found our Messy Color line was well stocked. We then had the production time we needed to melt experiments of new colors that many people have requested.

Some of our experiments were successful in that we created a new color that has been requested many times (such as Frost, a replacement for Vetrofond pale aqua). Some of the experiments were not successful (such as four pots attempting to make a burnt sienna that resulted in four not very exciting yellows below).

Although most of the new colors below are not mismelts, we have chosen to call them "Ltd Runs." In general, we have to melt a formula 5 times before we have a solid understanding of how difficult or easy it will be to reproduce accurately. Even then, we try not to add to our Messy Colors as that would create a line so expansive that resellers could not bear the cost of holding inventory. So instead of keeping the new Ltd Runs in stock constantly, we plan to melt them on demand in accordance with what artists are asking for. To make a request, click here.

The Ltd Runs we have enough experience melting to say with confidence that we can reproduce again accurately are: Bordello, Sea Foam, Mint Lozenge, Peacock Green, Soylent, Split Pea, Sherwood, French Blue, Halong Bay, Cornflower, Zachary, Count von Count, Larkspur, Khaki, Sepia, Mink, Chalcedony, Ming, and Pink Champagne. We have sporadic success with Pumpkin, Lipstick, Galapagos, Tuscan Teal, Berry Mist, Butter Pecan, and Chai. All other Ltd Runs (including the new ones below) do not have enough melt history for us to predict how accurately we will be able to reproduce the hue.

Feel free to email me at Kathy@creationismessy.com with any questions.

Happy Year of the Sheep!

Kathy"
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I wonder if the melting 5 times is what producing more bubbles?
Also, this is saying they make limiteds to keep the palette smaller? Not true! One email says there are 17 new limiteds, that's just one shipment.
I'd rather have stable glass like they had before than many colors. Most are so sameish anyway.

Well I tried another Autum rod that had been in the kiln. It explodes into a mess.

Thanks for resharing that email. I feel their frustration but I received no disclaimer before purchasing and that just sucks, especially if this is a known factor.

I emailed CIM and they declined to participate in this discussion. I also emailed Frantz to alert them to my concerns they are the main distributor for a semi-local company that won't even come talk to its customers.

Silly me.

I know this is a dead horse and I made assumptions. But their 96 COE stuff was amazing to melt.

Garage sale here I come.