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Melting Lava

Started by stuwaudby, May 19, 2011, 01:32:34 PM

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stuwaudby

Just got from Lanzarote and brought a bit of lava rock back with me.

Gave it a quick try on the torch last night and it melted! Made a quick rough bead, tried encasing some and used some as frit. Was a bit drunk so the reults were not great but it worked! It melts somewhere between 104 and boro and it's transition range is low (i.e. it melts to liquid really quick). Going to try again after this weekend and see what I can get.

Anyone else had any experience / got any suggestions?

awrylemming

I have absolutely nothing to offer - but I love the fact that you melted it in the first place  ;D

Black Heart Beads

That sounds a great. I love the idea of making your own Lava beads. But I wonder how you sell it to the public, they seem to have a hard enough time getting the idea of melting glass into beads let alone rock  :o

Steampunkglass

 :o Thats such a cool thing to do, I wouldn't have thought of trying to melt it! You can always try that test to guess the COE, put a blob of unknown glass (in this case rock!) onto a blob of know glass and pull. If the coe matches it'll stay straight when pulled, else it will curl.  :) I have seen some rock beinging sold for encasing in boro, like Molvadite (i thin k thats what it's called)

Beads by Jules

My Hubby is a geologist, must remember not to let him loose on here to get ideas like this! we have a house full of rocks and minerals, I'd never get on my torch again  ::)

He does have a cool gizmo at work, a plasma flame, I could be wrong here but i'm sure he said it burns to somewhere around the heat of the sun  :o he could well be taking the Michael though as I am pretty gullible

sea-thistle

I've got some Lava from Iceland, but i'm not going to melt it!lol ::)

GaysieMay

I have some lava beads - may try and melt them - but then they are already beads?  Still it could be a lot of fun, especially if we can add a bit of frit.   :D
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squirsygirl

Quote from: sea-thistle on May 20, 2011, 04:19:23 PM
I've got some Lava from Iceland, but i'm not going to melt it!lol ::)

I got some of the volcanic ash from that cloud, and encased it in several beads.  It went all shimmery and silvery.  I couldn't melt the pieces of rock I got though, maybe they weren't proper lava?   ???

Kirsty

sea-thistle

#8
Quote from: Kirsty B on May 20, 2011, 06:11:02 PM
Quote from: sea-thistle on May 20, 2011, 04:19:23 PM
I've got some Lava from Iceland, but i'm not going to melt it!lol ::)

I got some of the volcanic ash from that cloud, and encased it in several beads.  It went all shimmery and silvery.  I couldn't melt the pieces of rock I got though, maybe they weren't proper lava?   ???

Kirsty

Sounds good Kirsty! Did you get near enough to get some ash then!lol I have a dish from iceland made with volcanic mud!! lol . It's a few years since i went to iceland thankfully, the volcano wasn't erupting, but I did go to one of the largest geysers, Rokur think it was called, pretty spectacular! Fantastic place to go to Iceland! :)

Dee Dee

What a good idea - I'd never have thought of doing that - did you take photos?

stuwaudby

I suspect that purchased lava beads are ground into spheres and drilled.

After a bit more playing: The lava melts to a black glass like substance. A good bit of heating drives off alot of the trapped gasses however alot of gas cavities remain. Every bead I have made has cracked or crumbled. When molten it has low viscosity, which makes it all but impossible to make into a decent shape. I think the only option is to use it very sparingly as frit, giving oily looking black spots with plenty of bubbles.