Silver brown

[firedinglass]

I have some silver brown glass rods, they are a pale colour.  I ordered some more and it is much much darker. Has anyone else had this happen, does it behave in the same way?  I haven't had chance to try it yet but I was very surprised at the difference.....

[Lotti]

You can get dark silver brown and normal (ie not dark) silver brown, even within these two the rod colours can vary and in my experience the rod colours don't make that much difference (although I think it might depend on what you want to do with it, I am not sure if you can get the blues that some people get from both the dark and the light, hopefully someone who can do this - I did it once never to be repeated - will be along soon to advise!).  I love SB, one of my favs, have fun.

[flame n fuse]

I've admired pics of other people's work with SB, but can only get the lustre effect, not the shimmering colours. Any clues?

[Dragonfire Glass]

I have had differing results with different torches, not rod colour. Try heating it to drippy, cool, reduce & encase. I melt the encasement in slowly and as cooly as I can. The deep blues and purples should develop.

[firedinglass]

Thankyou!

[Krysia@No98]

I have had differing results with different torches, not rod colour. Try heating it to drippy, cool, reduce & encase. I melt the encasement in slowly and as cooly as I can. The deep blues and purples should develop.

I've only managed that once, but it really like it in it's brown state etched, it looks like beautiful snail cases

[GaysieMay]

I've had very different results from the same batch despite trying to keep the flame the same - different day different outcome!
This is silver brown the lentils only - looking golden and the same glass produced a dark navy metallic very pretty but not the same (they have shards on them either helios or aurae)


sea urchin necklace 037 by GaysieMay, on Flickr

A lovely glass but a little unpredictable! 

[AnnaSpanna]

I've never had much "intentional joy" with SB.  I once was messing about with it and encased it and mashed it into cube and voila I got encapsulated blues and purples.  Have never managed it since though - just a rusty haze at best but I was told that best results were often achieved by encasing it.  And for some reason I have loads of it all slightly different toned rods - some yellow and some a more brown colour but I do know that I haven't got any dark.

[Blue Box Studio]

Inspired by this I dug out those couple of rods of (normal) silver brown that were languishing at the back of the cupboard.  I got colour as I worked them in the flame, it disappeared when I took the glass out of the flame but nevermind, encase and hope .... encased, hoped, kissed the kiln fairy .... and got green sludge   Wasn't working too close to the flame, tried drippy cool reduce encase, tried not so drippy, cool, don't reduce as had a bit of colour, encase. It's back in the cupboard!  Might try again when I change the gas tank, I think it's getting low and a bit mucky but the oxy was working OK so can't blame that (didn't start to go go low-ox for a while yesterday).

[Redhotsal]

I found that whenever I got success with SB I reduced lightly but the most important thing is to let the glass strike. (it appears to strike like DH Clio does).

If I managed to get it to strike I got lovely pinks and blues but if it didn't strike I just got shimmery yellows.

You will get pearlescent bluey/grey if you over reduce. I'm not too keen on this type of MOP effect for this glass. I find you'll have better chance of it striking if you encase it. In my experience I think the darker SB is easier to work than the lighter one.

Pesonally - I have never had to heat it 'til drippy, especially when I got (success!) - blues and pinks. Hope this helps. 

[GaysieMay]

That explains the difference I got the other five lentils I made were lovely bluey metallic colours with a lustre - very pretty - but then I was never sure what it was supposed to do! 

[Shirley]

I've seen some that Colette has made that are lilacky in colour. Lovely effect

[Dragonfire Glass]

Heating until really hot seems to get the best results for me, I guess everyone has a different set up and therefore different results. Trying out alternative combinations of oxygen and heat levels is the best way.

825 by Dragonfire Glass, on Flickr

[Bubblebeads]

I have had some really nice effects with this colour some great purples and blue shades on the hothead torch and when encasing them really pleased with the results ...

[firedinglass]

I use this quite often in my murrini, layered with other colours.