Does Kiln Temp affect colour??

[Fruddy]

Hokay.  Hoping that you guys can help me with something.

Gemma, my daughter, has asked me to make a bracelet for her friend for Christmas, but she wants it multi-coloured.  Not multi-coloured, as in different coloured beads, one blue, one red, one green etc., that would be too easy.  No, she wants the actual beads shot through with different colours.

Now I have been experimenting with this for a week or so, using different DH glass and a couple of days ago I thought that I had cracked it.  I made a plain white bead, put a little SIS on it and then gave it a couple of swipes of Luna2.  Got, what I thought, were some gorgeous greens, purples, pinks and blues when melted in and then struck.  Didn't encase.

But.  Everytime I take them out of the kiln (and this morning is the second time I have tried) the bright peacock colours that I had achieved have morphed into very boring oranges and browns.

Could my kiln temp be to blame??

I garage at 510 degrees and then ramp up to 530 when finished for an hour and then drop down to 330 over two hours before the programme ends.

It's really frustrating!!  I've got about 15 nice brown and orange beads in my shed which I know full well Gemma will NOT want!!!

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[julieHB]

It sounds like your beads have continued to strike in the kiln, either d/t the high annealing temp you use, or the time they have been in the kiln. A lot of people anneal silver glass beads as low as 485 deg C, to not either over strike or remove any reduction shine.

I am garaging at 500 deg C, and anneal at 510 deg C for an hour, and have found that with the silver glasses I have used it works fine (and it works with the normal glasses as well). You may want to try that, and see how it goes. If the beads are still yukky when they come out you might need to lower the temperature further.

Here's some more info for you: http://envisionsf.blogspot.com/2009/04/silver-glass-101-annealing-temperature.html

[Trudi]

Hi Rach

With luna I find that it works much better encased - wierd I know as it looks good un-encased going into the kiln. So I would try encasing them. I anneal this at 520°C and have no issues.

Some silver glass will strike in the kiln - ie pandora, but I find that it generally needs a higher temperature to do this (and sometimes they come out better the longer you leave them in for).

You could also try multicolour or magic if you want opaque multicolours too.

Hope that helps.

[Fruddy]

Thank you guys!!

I shall have another go this afternoon!

Much appreciated.

[Mand]

You could always go the faux boro route using iris gold frit and clear over some lilac?