Hello :)
Is lauscha and silver glass totally incompatable? I have definitely read that on here, and took it as 'law', Anouks silverglass tutorials imp;y that it is incompatible too. However, on L.E. it seems to be OK. for example, Fruddy posted a link to a fire opals project recently and it uses ekho encased in lauscha. I guess I should just try it for myself, but I would appreciate if anyone has a good/bad experience with it they could let me know?
I will try it next time on the torch and let you know how I get on too :)
ta xx
Everything I have encase with Lauscha shows stress lines when viewed under a polarizing filter. I have tried some silver glass and it looks fine, and hasn't cracked - but again the stress lines show. A few of the beads I've made have cracked, but not many. Apparently if you pop it in the kiln still glowing you should have less problems.
I have had definate cracking issues using Lauscha with Silver Glass
I certainly would not risk it - have had lots of beads crack in the early days combining silver glass and lauscha clear. I just use lauscha clear with standard colours.
Kazx
I've had no problems with ekho and psyche following the fire opal tutorial. I've also used lauscha to encase effetre that had silver frit bits in it, and they were fine as long as they went into the kiln glowing. Those ones were made over 3 years ago.
The first silver glass beads I ever encased were with Lauscha clear and I remember how sad I felt when I practically watched them crack. Since discovering the delights of Effetre 006, I must admit I've not revisited my Lauscha stash.
I love Lauscha clear and use it for everything - except silver glass. I've had too many crack.
In my experience I have used it successfully with Pysche and Terra but it doesn't like many of the others and it is 100% certain to crack with Pandora.
Sam - if I use Lauscha clear and run it through a "normal" annealing schedule - i.e. a 520C Effetre soak, I get stress lines with Lauscha regardless of whether it is with silver glass or not. I reckon Lauscha needs a higher temperature to anneal at - so, if you're using it with a striking silver glass the higher temperature will kill the strikers colour anyway. So, as the others have said it's probably better to stick with Effetre (or even the DH clear) as this seems to be much more stable.
Sal, I think you may be right about the annealing temp, I was given some lauscha to try and was told by my loverly donor it wants to go straight into a kiln to soak at around 560, which is why I've not used it yet! :)
Yup, it definitely needs a higher annealing temp - I don't think it needs as high as 560, though (providing your kiln temperature reading is accurate). They recommend garaging at 980F (=527C) and holding there for two hours, or more for beads larger than 4cm, a slow ramp down and then holding at 427C for the same length of time as the first hold. Beads are supposed to go in the kiln glowing a little.
I will be doing some tests with polarising filters once I start stocking it, to be sure.
You definitely don't want to be using it with silver glass that you are annealing lower for colour reasons ;)
Some people can get it to work, but if you don't want to spend a while making test beads and checking them for stress, you're probably safer using one of the other clears for silver glass. They did reformulate their clear with the idea of making it more compatible (this was, er, 2007?) but a lot of people still have problems.
^ What I know is from reading what other people have said. I spent a long time going through all the Lauscha threads for research. As of yet I have no experience using it myself, just so you know ;D