Supernova tips

[Mary]

I have found Supernova very different from the other silver glasses to work, so I thought I'd tell you how I did my vessel, if you are interested.

First of all I turned my propane up, so my flame was big and blue with a bit of yellow in the middle. I melted the end of a rod in this flame, right down in the flame (I usually reduce further out) twisting and folding it before pulling a cloudy greyish stringer.
Then I worked on the rest of the vessel, still in the same flame. It seemed to be encasing the colours as I worked, rather than having them sitting on the surface.
Then I spiralled on the stringer. I turned back to a neutral flame for melting it together and shaping it. I find it goes brownish if I keep it in the reducing flame.

Hope that helps a bit!

[carolanne]

Hullo! The Mighty Q suggested I drop in and see you folks...

I work at the factory where Supernova is made and had to do tests for them...(okay, GOT to do tests for them - it was very exciting!) Since you guys are getting Supernova nowadays, I thought I should link to the results of my testing if you are interested.
:-)

http://lauschaglassvacations.com/supernova/

Plus, at the end, when you decorate it with unreduced stringer, you can get a deep indigo blue from the stringer bits, not just transparent... I forgot that part... 

Big hello from Lauscha,
Carol Anne

[glassworks]

excellent work chaps - now the pair of you can give some advice on how it is possible to use a HH to get these colours out of the reactive glasses?... i read something somewhere about using alu foil to block the holes up?... is there another way that HH users can play with these high silver glass's - or any other tips and tricks you guys can share... i think the vessels by mary and carolanne are bloody fabulous - and i am green with envy... need to go and get my butt in front of a burner and start playing with this stuff!!!

[carolanne]

Well, a hothead is supposed to be marvelous for reducing stuff... Isn't it working for people?

I would think, from the little bit of playing I did on a friend's hothead, trying to keep Rubino from reducing into a teeny weeny ash, that if you just have your glass mass a wee bit closer into the flame where there is less air/ambient oxygen, then it would work...

Shall I try playing with it out in the street with a can of propane and a plumbers torch? (Gosh, I wonder if my plumber's torch even fits the propane canisters over here...)

And Q, what are you doing up so early? I've been awake since 5 of course, lying in bed with the cornies trying to suck the heat and life out of me... there's a tiny bit of powdery snow falling here... We need much more. We had literally metres last year... I got here just after it finallly melted last spring...

[Mary]

Gosh Carolanne, you got even more colours! I thought I'd done well! Brill, I must try harder, lol!

Q, to get reduction on a HH you can just work close to the torch head, which would be good for Supernova. For cooler work, you make a collar of cooking foil (a few layers) and a flap for moving it up and down. You leave it down at the neck of the torch till you need to reduce, then slide the collar up to cover the air holes.

[carolanne]

Gosh Carolanne, you got even more colours! I thought I'd done well! Brill, I must try harder, lol!

Q, to get reduction on a HH you can just work close to the torch head, which would be good for Supernova. For cooler work, you make a collar of cooking foil (a few layers) and a flap for moving it up and down. You leave it down at the neck of the torch till you need to reduce, then slide the collar up to cover the air holes.

Oh Mary, thank you for liking the vessel - I had an unlimited amount of Supernova to bugger around with - it took 3 full rods before I figured out the trick and this vessel is still my favourite. The totally sad thing is, that I have Cornish Rex cats - 2 of them and right little devils they are - they steal things all the time - so I put the vessel someplace REALLY safe... and haven't seen it since. It was my favourite thing to wear too and I dreamed of doing a better photograph... I am glad that I wasn't totally off on working closer to the torch head with a HH. I only played with one one time when a friend ran out of oxygen one day! I had concentrators in Canada and in the hutte we have tanks. Tanked oxygen - the image of tanks driving around in the glass hutte was pretty funny there for a second. Can you tell I have a translation to do? ;-)