How To Use Our Blends

WORKING WITH 96 COE GLASS BLENDS

Our blends are made from premium furnace glass - 96 COE. You may use them freely with the same glass COE such as Reichenbach 96, Gaffer, or Uroboros. There are no limitations what so ever when pairing the frit with any glass that is 96 COE.

USING OUR BLENDS WITH 104 COE GLASS

YES - you can use our blends with 104 glass, just use no more than  5-10% of glass frit to ensure compatibility. To reduce the chance for cracking even more, apply the frit as the last layer of your bead.

USING OUR BLENDS WITH A HOT HEAD TORCH

Yes, our blends work with a Hot Head torch, although its not as ideal as a two fuel torch (gas/propane and oxygen).

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WORKING WITH BORO BLENDS

We use only Glass Alchemy Boroscilicate to make our boro blends. We love their glass, the wide range of colors in their palette and last but not least -  they are a wonderful and talented group of people to work with.

ABOUT GLASS ALCHEMY:

Established in 2000, Glass Alchemy, Ltd. is a small family business, committed to developing and manufacturing unique high quality colored glass, made by hand in small batches, for artists worldwide. They take great pride in leading the industry through the ongoing innovation of their product and manufacturing process. We know you will appreciate the effort they put into making their glass and will notice the difference when working with it.

Glass Alchemy’s mission statement “Enhancing the world through vision, creativity, and innovation” has kept them on the forefront of new color development and methodology in the field of colored borosilicate art glass.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Use only boro 33 COE glass with the boro blends for compatibility. They may not be used with our 96 frit blends.

TORCH SET UP:

All of the sample beads were made on a Lynx torch with a 15 LPM oxygen concentrator and a brick kiln with a digital controller for annealing. This set up or its equivalent is fine for beads and pendants. If you intend to make larger sculptural art, you would need a more powerful torch/oxygen set up. A Hot Head torch is not recommended for use with boro glass.

Start with a neutral flame (always work with a neutral flame—it helps maintain consistency and vibrancy in your work) - wind a base layer of 33 clear, then roll in boro frit until saturated then encase in 33 clear (encasing is optional but recommended). I keep my kiln at 1050 degrees until the last bead goes in and hold for one hour.

At the annealing range of 1035°F to 1065°F (depending on the brand of clear or color you are using), the artist has tremendous control of the color outcome. If the glass is taken to a white heat (very liquid state), the crystals will melt and the glass will unstrike. GA recommends flame striking for silver colors and kiln striking for ruby colors.

Kiln striking for ruby colors rather than flame striking is to ensure even heating at the proper temperatures. This prevents your reds turning “livery” which is a brown red instead of the vibrant red you hoped for. Reds should look clear or very slightly pink when they go in the kiln. If you are using colors that need to kiln strike, ramp kiln to 1125º F for 20 minutes.

Then I ramp down at 200 degrees/hour. This is my personal annealing schedule and intended to be used only as a guide. Your own kiln, glass type or the size of glass being worked may require different calculations.

SILVER COLORS:

I use a lot of silver colors in my blends. You have an exciting opportunity to produce gorgeous and unusual color effects depending on how you work with the temperature of the glass and the flame settings.

All silver colors should be worked at hot temperatures to create, form and assemble the elements. Once your piece is formed switch to a lower heat, just above the annealing temperatures 1075°F to 1125°F, to grow the silver crystals. The smallest crystals are invisible. As they grow they will create a yellow color. In order of increasing size, the silver crystals will become orange, ruby red, red-purple, purple, blue then green.

Once you start recognizing the heat profile, you will have gained another level of color control. For example, if you let the core temperature drop and then reheat only the surface, the silver crystals will grow faster in this top layer than the layers just below. If the heat is uneven, you create a “veil” of color on the surface called haze. On the other hand, one can use the heat profiles to determine that they can intentionally create a “veil” of color by creating skin crystals, or what we call skystals. The process that creates skystals is: work the piece hot so that no color develops, then pull the piece out of the flame to let the core temperature drop or even go cold, and finally apply an even heat to the surface for a short period of time.

You can create fantastic patterns of color, depending on how even your heat is and what you do to mix in uneven heat. Simple techniques, such as twisting the rod as you heat it, contact with a cool paddle, or pinching with a pair of needle nose pliers, can create great patterns, especially in beads. Also consider using glass itself, such as clear frit, as an insulator. Or try using other silver colors or tints as “dots.”

If you want to bring a luster to the surface, bring the glass to 1200 – 1250°F (remember that it is easy to burn a fume off the surface) and treat the surface about 20 seconds. In a neutral flame, the luster will be silver. In the bushy, reducing flame, the luster will be multicolored. This flame will strip oxygen from the silver oxide (Silver is reduced with heat—un-burned carbon will transport liberated oxygen away.) leaving metallic silver on the surface and causing the “sheen.” Consider polishing the surface to enhance the brightness.

For example, in the colors 383 Silver Strike 3 or 385 Silver Strike 5*, you can grow the crystals yourself. When you are ready to create the nuclei, simply cool the color to a slight orange glow, about 950°F, and maintain the temperature for 20 – 30 seconds. Then heat it back up to 1075 – 1125°F and grow the crystals. The longer you hold the piece at the lower temperature, the more nuclei you create and the more intense the final color will be when you grow the crystals.

SAFETY:

Use special eyewear designed for use with borosilicate glass. I use Phillips Green ACE 3.0 Lens Glasses, which provides all the same protection as the regular soft glass ACE lens, but with the added brightness reduction of a shade 3 welder's tint for Borosilicate flameworking.

Proper ventilation is critical in your flameworking studio - especially with boro glass. Avoid any food or beverages in your studio as the colorants in the glass can be ingested in this manner. You may also choose to use a safety mask to prevent the inhalation of dust particles.