no shine on aurae

[princess pink]

finally got a couple hours to make some beads yesterday and played with aurae.

made a bumpy bead with a base of mystic beige, then some gold violet dots with aurae dots over top. Looked amazing once it reduced, really irridescent!

next made a couple of clear lentils thinly encased in aurae, reuced these but they didn't shine as much as i thought they would.

Anyway cooked em all last night in the kiln and all of em even the bumpy bead have lost their reduction. the bumpy bead has a slight reduction on a couple dots but the rest is clear essentially. the lentils are a murky brown with a hint of shimmer but nothing special.

the same thing happened to some triton i used in strnger, went from mirror shimmer to blue with a hint of metallic.

any ideas what i'm doing wrong?

[Calico Cat]

I would try the trick suggested by Sal - put a small lump of charcoal in the kiln to create a reduction "environment".

I would assume you have to be careful what other beads you put in there as well so you don't muck up anything else 

Carole

[Lush!]

I started to say that about the charcoal, then got confused, so I didn't!

[Trudi]

I've never tried it just with dots - with some silver glass you need to use more of it if you know what I mean.

But have you tried encasing it too?

[princess pink]

anyone know if you can put charcoal from a BBQ ready to light pack in the kiln or will it blow up?

[Dragonfire Glass]

A word of caution.

I recently had to replace my kiln element, had it shipped directly from Paragon in the US.
My element was completely brittle and broke into bits. The kiln is approx 2½ years old.

In the literature I received with the element was a section on 'How to get the longest life out of your element.'
Quote

Reduction firing, which removes oxygen from your kiln, will ruin your element. The elements are protected by a coating of oxidation, which reduction firing destroys.

Now mine is a Bluebird and the element is set visibly in the roof of the kiln. The SC2 element is hidden away. This will probably make a difference. But just be aware.

[squirsygirl]

Can't offer any advice with the glass, but I was wondering if you got to the bottom of the HH torch problems, Shahlaa?

Kirsty

[princess pink]

i certainly dont want to mess up my kiln but i can't get any silver glasses to stay shiny. i can't really afford too waste more silver glass doing another test run either.

any other tips? i batch anneal btw


yes kirsty i upgraded to a minor

[Trudi]

You know I was wondering  - could you have mixed your rods up. It does look like amethyst. Aurae does strike/reduce quite easily...

[Hayley]

Sorry I haven't seen this post earlier - I need to pop into this forum more frequently!

What temperature are you annealing at? Lowering your annealing temp will help retain your reduction effects.

When I anneal at 515C/960F, all my reducing effects get erased. I anneal at 495C/920F now and never have a problem.

I wrote about annealing silver glass on my blog if you are interested:

http://envisionsf.blogspot.com/2009/04/silver-glass-101-annealing-temperature.html

Hope this helps!