Hi, I bought a rod of Multicolour glass to try out this week.
Made quite a nice bead from cobalt blue with some multicolour trailed around it - but the multicolour just looks a dull pale green now that it has cooled (not annealled yet , Beadcube only arrived today and I haven't worked out how to use it yet! :D).
I was hoping for...well, colours - I am on a Hothead, can anyone tell me how to get better results?
Thanks!
You need to strike it.
You CAN definitely do it on a Hothead (I've done it).
Heat it up until very hot (as hot as you can go), then take it out of the flame and cool it until the glow is gone (check it under your bench as its darker there). Gradually reintroduce it to the very tip of the flame, and you will see the colours start to appear!
Good luck....
I find it likes lot of marvering especially with brass then heating again and mavering etc etc
And you's be so much better off with multicolour dark as it is much easier to get reactions out of.
Kazx
Quote from: Kaz on August 13, 2010, 10:42:33 PM
And you's be so much better off with multicolour dark as it is much easier to get reactions out of.
Kazx
Ah! I thought that's what we were talking about, not used regular multicolour :-[
I found that the more you use the better - I made some 16mm rounds - and as you naturally have to heat and cool as you add more glass it strikes as you make the bead - I think the same would be true when Sabine made roses out of it!
And it looks fabaroony etched!
Thanks everyone!
I'll try again tomorrow and follow the advice given. I'm determined to get some colours out of it now!
I find you have to be patient with it. When I reintroduce it to the flame I only let it get to a dull orange glow, then bring it out again. Sometimes you can see a 'bloom' moving round the bead when it's in the flame and this seems to be when the colours develop. I love it.
I also find it changes again slightly in the kiln...good luck!
I usually have trouble getting a good strike in the flame. It tends to strike at a very low temperature, if you get any glow on the bead you may loose the strike.
I get by far the best colours when they kiln strike during batch annealing. If not then try lifting the anneal temperature 25 degrees to help it.
You can get a great effect with multicolour by mixing it with clear, about 4 to 1 and making clear beads. When they are flamed they look like yellow tinged clear. After annealing they are amazing. The following was annealed for 1 hour @ 512 DEgC, sorry about the photo quality:
(http://www.waudby.net/pictures/albums/userpics/normal_front.jpg)
Stu
you'ver really got some nice effects going on there!
Thank you for that tip Stu, I'm certainly gone try that one out. That beads is beautiful.
nice colours in that bead Stu,
I will have to try again, yesterday I made some clear lentils encased with multi, but could only get greens and blues, I can't have been striking it enough, or possibly too much? but then again when I tell you that I couldn't work out where the colour had gone from my CIM pheonix beads (until I found some older posts ::))as they were turing out colourless!! , so my next session will be trying out some more striking, and I've just watched Laura Sparling's tutorial on youtube, so I should be sucessful (fingers crossed!!) :)
kath
Beautiful bead, Stu! I have had pretty good luck using Multicolor or Dark Multicolor in twisties (usually with just black or clear). I think it's because I am getting the Multi hot during the twisty making process and then again when adding to the bead, thus striking the color fairly well.
I got absolutely ZILCH out of the Multicolour batch that I bought a few months ago. It wasn't the dark one but I do remember reading on here that some people had some multicolour that did very little. So, if you've tried and tried and got nothing it MAY be the batch you have.
Think I may have to get my felt-tipped pens out to get any colour (other than green) out of my multicolour......
All I got with my multicolour was a baby poo green :(
I must give the dark a try though, after seeing what it's capable of, I just have to at least give it another go :)
Maybe I got a rod from the same batch Sal :(. Haven't been able to get anything other than green either. Though I haven't annealled the beads yet so maybe something magical will happen in the kiln...they aren't even great beads but I don't like to give up too easily!
Quote from: cbeadies on September 15, 2010, 09:05:51 PM
Maybe I got a rod from the same batch Sal :(. Haven't been able to get anything other than green either. Though I haven't annealled the beads yet so maybe something magical will happen in the kiln......
hmmm......wouldn't hold your breath on that one....heh! ;)
Can the multicolour be overworked in the flame? - I was making a bicone in multi and was getting some lovely purples but kept faffing with the shape (gave up in the end and made a tube!) and ended up with a green bead with a bit of colour at one end, where I added glass just before finishing. It ain't pretty :(
Sue
yes, you can overwork it, particularly if you have the dodgy batch.
You can reset it by heating it til its gloopy then letting it cool right down (and I mean RIGHT DOWN as far as you can without it crakcing when you put it back in the flame) and then re-striking it.
Do your rods look opaque all the way through or are they greenish with clear bits in the middle?
I have never had any great joy with multicolour on my HH but when I tried my rods on my mum's minor it went a haywire mess of lovely colours.
The dark multi can be gotten (poor english - sorry) to go quite mad very easily on the HH as long as you use brass to marver it. But yeah the normal multi is a bit of a non-starter on a HH IMHO - but every so often you can get a glimpse of what it can do. And then it just goes baby poo green. again.