Multicolor Dark 96

SunDoorBeads · #1 2010-02-24, 3:30pm

HI All!
I have a quick question- after playing non stop with my MCD 96 in stringer and faux frit (dotting quick little snippets of the glass onto the bead) and after working it similar to how I do the MC 104 (reg not dark) I am still coming up with VERY dark indigo that over the black I am using as a base does not show up- there are small areas of the beads where you can see all that great color coming through but I have no idea what happened to get that- I totally think I am working the color wrong- this is what I am doing with the stringer:
I pull it about 2mm thick it is a mottled red and tan color at this point
I apply it in a neutral flame it is still raised at this point. I then melt the stringer in using the same neutral flame. Now at this stage I have not super heated anything and the stringer has already changed from it's red/tan color to a poopy grey. once it is fully melted I then turn it down a bit and super heat the beat till I see the white hot look come over the stringer (like raku work) then I cool the bead and reheat- now this is where I get the VERY deep indigo or almost dark brown black- to me this would be the first strike in Raku but when I further try to develop the color it does nothing I popped all the beads in a kiln and annealed at 940 for 2 hours before ramping down. All the beads came out the way they went in. Now like I said there were little places where it looked like the color had developed the way I expected but no idea how I made that happen. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help!! There I have begged

Thank you in advance

Elizabeth Beads · #2 2010-02-24, 7:14pm

Encase your bead. You will get violets and pinks.

Lisi · #3 2010-02-24, 8:31pm

Same thing happened to me, a black bead with a little blue here and there. So does it have to be encased for the colors to come out of hiding??

SilverReflections · #4 2010-02-25, 7:48pm

I don't work MCD the way I work raku. My suggestion is to try it again and don't superheat it. Just let it cool and then strike it to a gentle orange. Try cooling it quickly with a graphite marver. You may want to try several gentle cool and reheats too. One of my favorite things to do with this glass is to use mcd as the base, and apply mcd frit (#1), squeeze, then strike. The frit gets white hot as it melts in because of the size and then I get a nice blue/purplish background with deep purple and some blue spots from the frit. I'll try to get a picture later tonight.

Working a large bead, I've struck the glass and then encased partially and get these muted pinkish/purple colors under the encasing which is also very pretty. It was a larger bead though and was heated a lot after encasing which I htink may be part of the reason. When I encased a smaller bead and kept the base cooler I was able to keep the blue/purple colors under the clear. Hope you get it to work, its one of my new favorite colors. I've not noticed much difference between the 96 and 104 COE's either for this glass compared to raku which I only like the 96COE.

Tina

zen-mom · #5 2010-02-25, 8:02pm

I just make little daisy type beads and get a huge range of purples and blues...

I made one tiny spacer bead and it turned out like streaky faded denim.

Sorry no pic of the spacer bead...

Didn't do anything, in fact they go into the kiln looking like poop and come out with all the color

truegem · #6 2010-02-25, 10:03pm

My dark looks almost the same as my regular. =(

zen-mom · #7 2010-02-25, 10:06pm

I just got some of the regular, will be making test beads tomorrow to see what happens.

SilverReflections · #8 2010-02-25, 10:30pm

Here are some of the beads I was talking about. One thing is for sure, I need to work on my pictures...

Tina

pgglass · #9 2010-06-10, 5:57pm

Treat the multicolor just like Raku. It's a striking color and will cycle through a range of colors over and over again. You can encase it when it's nearly black and then strike it until you get the colors that you want.