Striking and reducing

[glassworks]

our rainbow red is awesome!!!!! we had two or three rods in our bundle which look completely transparent - like giant sticks of rubino... and they strike to the deepest most intense red you can imagine!!! i'll have to make a paddle as no-one will believe the colour!!!

all the other rainbow red rods are in fact red opaque - maybe these few clear ones snuck in there during the cutting picking process!!..

[Mary]

Trudi, blowing on it just cools it quicker. Like if you want to snap off a stringer, or to get raku to react, you sometimes want spot cooling.

If you are getting unreliable striking, it might be several things. What glass is it? Say it's effetre trans red, it's one I use often. Overcooking it, or cooking it in too reducing a flame, or too close to the torch, makes it muddy, cloudy or brown. Annealing too hot or too long makes it brownish.

If you have pale patches or clear patches you are not fully striking it. Try warming it a little bit longer, or cooling and warming again. It should be uniformly black before you finish.
Good luck!

[Trudi]

Black??? - it that when you've cooled it and then wafted it in the flame again to warm it?

It 's the effetre I'm using - I've got red / yellow / orange - the orange came out a really dark ruby red colour - nice but I really wanted orange.

The red and yellow came out great once - then a little cloudy and not so bright the next time!