Gaffer Chalcedony How?

[Hotglass28]

How/what is the best way to get the colours out of this glass.

Trust me, I have read the posts on here and on LE, followed many of the tips and still this is very unpredictable glass.

What am I doing wrong, because I thought I cracked it after the 15th bead.  I got really nice colours from that bead even emerald green with blues and purples and no poo colours in sight. Now I seem to get nothing but brown mess with a hint of colour on the sides 

I really am a newbie so I'm not sure if I should be heating it up fast/slowly. Cooking the heck out of it or keep it cool. Lots of people seem to have different ways and its confuzzleing me

Some one, any one, pleaseeee ?

Denise

[Jolene]

Soory to hijack but I have a question too, Chalcedony is CoE 96 right? Do I need a different annealing schedule to the one I use for my 104 beads?

Thanks, Jo x

[Mary]

Same anealing schedule Jo.

Denise, the dark brown is the stage before the colours. Let it cool a bit, then heat it again and the colours should come.

[Shirley]

I like to heat it up loads and get it all droopy. I can usually see the glass starting to 'break up' in the flame. I then shape the bead and let it cool until there is no glow. After that I heat gently, coaxing out the colours. Usually you can see a bloom coming over the bead and that's when the colour changes. If the bead gets too hot it will stop the colour coming through so I tend to warm it up a bit, then remove it, then warm again and keep the cycle going until I can't be bothered any more!

[Hotglass28]

Ok, I shall have another play tomorrow with it.

At one point I was playing with the same bead for 10 mins trying to get the colours out. I did notice a bloom when you really heat it close to the tip of the torch but I assumed this was the glass cooking not the colour coming out  (if that makes sense) I thought I was going mad and at one point I thought   "Ive heated it up and down so many times I must of worn the special effects of the glass out"

I also had a look at the gaffer usa site were there is a tip on working with it which I didnt see before.

I really want to get back those greens I got in that one bead, grr, taking a break from it today and getting back to safe and predictable glass to practice my encasing

Thank you for posting back for me!!

Denise

[turnedlight]

I found you just work it for ages, getting colours, then raking them around.. then trying to get them again But then, I haven't gone back to it again, I expect my next go will be rubbish! I didn't try and encase.

[Hotglass28]

I tried that too and I did get a bit more of colour.

This glass is great stuff but boy its making me scratch my head sometimes. 

I look at the ones posted on LE and drool, thet look like curdled rainbow milk.  Yummy.

Still playing

Denise