Gaffer powder

SMHBuss · January 29, 2014, 09:18:02 AM

Has anyone used Effetre Navy yet?? I have had a little play and it is more of a blueish grey. Just wondering if anyone else has had different results.

The lighter one on top is encased.

Effetre Navy by Moonlight Beads, on Flickr

GaysieMay · January 29, 2014, 06:46:37 PM

I was at Tuffnell's the other day and was asking after one of my favourite glasses - cim stoneground. Teresa said it hadn't come in despite expecting it. Ever helpful Teresa and Becky started to suggest similar looking glasses. I left with Effetre sand and a promise to play with it as soon as possible. So here is what I did with it.

Effetre Sand by GaysieMay, on Flickr

The little heart is etched stoneground with silvered ivory shards.

The sand heart has shards made with sand and silver on it. The other beads have either silver foil or iris orange frit on them. As you can see I haven't etched them yet, but as a substitute for stoneground I am really rather pleased with Effetre sand. I'm not entirely sure what the price comparison looks like, but I do know that Effetre seem to make more reliable and stable glass pulls, so I personally am a happy bunny. X

Pat from Canvey · February 04, 2014, 05:48:42 PM

One of my sons has been attempting to set up a basic cheap and cheerful electroforming kit for me and all the bits have now been delivered. Heres the kit,

We tried one of the dead bay leaves from my garden to trial the set up and this is the result,

It's bit patchy and for the next trial he's changed the current and we've used a snail shell from the garden. I'll post a picture of that when it's finished. You can still see the veins in the leaf and it seems to be sturdy enough if it was to be used in jewellery. Of course the jump ring attachment needs to be neater b8ut since this was just a first try, we didn't take a lot of care when glueing the ring to the leaf.

Pat from Canvey · February 05, 2014, 04:48:28 PM

Heres the snail shell after three hours in the solution,

Pat from Canvey · February 11, 2014, 12:52:49 PM

Heres a plain white bead that's been electroformed,

and the other side,

I'm not sure yet how secure the coating will be but will tumble the bead to shine the copper. That should prove how durable the coating is.

Modified to add, I've just finished tumbling and some of the coating has come off but one side has remained and become shiny.

GaysieMay · May 29, 2014, 03:54:41 PM

Some of you may have seen a post where I was asking for advice on ageing beads and giving them a pitted look, as usual you all came up trumps with ideas and links etc. I must admit I was a little nervous about using some of the chemicals involved and opted for the baking powder and sand route. I also threw some enamel and gold leaf into the mix for a little fun before etching them.

I have to say I was very pleased with the results. My initial inspiration was a beautiful picture posted on facebook by a fellow lampworker John Winter. If you go on my page www.facebook.com/gaysiemay and find the beads John has also added the photo in his comments.

Thanks again for all your suggestions

Gay

Patina beads 008 by GaysieMay, on Flickr

Patina beads 009 by GaysieMay, on Flickr

I can't wait to make them up into some jewellery x

Hotglass28 · May 29, 2014, 08:11:38 PM

I'm determined to fill the world with my Owls. lol

Here is one of mine turned into a pendant using 925 wire, little crystal atop her bonce and a little branch for her to sit on.

Whaddaya think?

DSC_0234 by The Owl Goes Hoot, on Flickr

Irene · June 02, 2014, 06:36:17 PM

Here is my very first attempt at a glass creature. A bumble bee is what she is supposed to be. I really struggled With her, the glass melted when it was not supposed too and vice versa. I don't know how long her wings will hold, but she is annealed so I hope she will survive for a while.

Irene · June 16, 2014, 08:50:05 PM

This is my very first Hollow bead. It has some flaws, it imploded on me and so a part of it got stuck to the mandrel in the middle, but the rest is Hollow.I used a mandrel With two holes out toward the end of the mandrel. I blew much too hard in the beginning and a portion of it ballooned out and then exploded. But I fixed the hole and continued With only small puffs in the mandrel and it started to behave better. The damage had allready been done though, and I only have one of these mandrels so I couldn't try again at once. It was very much fun and I absolutely will make another one soon.

Irene · June 20, 2014, 02:51:02 PM

I had to try again to make a Hollow one. This is nr3. My nr. 2 did not work at all. But this one I am very very happy With. It is truly Hollow, no airbubbles as I can see. The only thing wrong With it is the holes, they could be prettier, and it is a bit lopsided.

Now, it is not annealed yet, and so it has to be put in the kiln Cold and ramp up to garaging temperature. Any suggestions on how fast I can ramp It With a Hollow bead? I don't want to destroy it.

Pat from Canvey · July 07, 2014, 11:48:46 AM

I mentioned this in another post.

Here's my fused disc of pulled cane from my and my partners vitrigraph pull. The dark colours were caused by a reaction between adjacent circles of glass in the vitrigraph pot. There were three kilns operating for the disc slump and there was a problem in the kiln in which my disc was slumping resulting in the disc falling from one side of the slump ring. This was the result.

Nathan the tutor felt so bad about it that he gave me one of his signed pieces to take home. The other project we each did was to fuse some scraps and cane flat and this was my piece set up in it's dams,

I opted for simple because I was getting very tired by that stage. I flat lapped the edges and fire polished them at home and this is the final piece.

I learned a lot on the course but driving there and back accross the QE2 bridge each day was a bit of a killer. The meals provided each day were great though and I bought myself a vitrigraph kiln on the final day so that I could play at home.

Pat from Canvey · July 12, 2014, 04:29:34 PM

I mentioned in my previous post that I'd bought a vitrigraph kiln at the end of my course. I wanted to try out something simple for a first pull and heres the pot filled with scrap white Spectrum glass left over from stained glass projects many years ago.

Here are the canes from the pull, they are all about 4ft,

The 4 on the extreme left are hollow which is what happens when the pot is getting empty but the canes can still be used. The rest are solid white COE 96 rods which I can use to make beads. Another plus is that I can use as much COE 96 frit as I want as the 5% rule doesn't apply. You may notice that theres some pale blue in the pot plus some of the bits are rust stained but this hasn't shown up in the pulled cane. I forgot to mention that the whole thing took 7 hours from turning on the kiln to turning it off.

Pat from Canvey · July 14, 2014, 04:46:41 PM

Alan, if your kiln is a Paragon Caldera, it can easily be made into a vitrigraph kiln by removing the base and sitting the kiln onto a vermiculite shelf with a circular hole cut in it. I don't know about the bottle glass. I've made beads from bottle glass and added decoration from a differently coloured bottle. The white Spectrum scrap I pulled is very shocky but I got around that by heating them in the kiln prior to making a bead. I have a large ceramic kiln so might try annealing the rods to see if it makes any difference.
Heres the pull I did this afternoon.

There are 10 lengths of about 4ft that are solid and 7 lengths that are hollow. Some of the hollows which have thicker walls, I can use to blow baubles. The others I may put into a melt or turn into frit.

I've been asked by Nathan Sandberg to remove the last picture and that is why it's disappeared.
Bullseye has an section at http://www.bullseyeglass.com/forum/index/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3398 on the basic use of a vitrigraph kiln for anyone interested.

kizzy1 · August 09, 2014, 10:15:41 AM

A good way to use up some rod ends and create a wand pendant
I used a strip of copperfoil,tin coated copper wire,fused glass cabochons and crystals then soldered them to the rod ends and soldered a wire loop attached a open bail and chain.....I used to sell theses years ago for £20 at psychic fairs and crystal shops.

mini wand pendants by kizzys.glass, on Flickr

Or you can even make large hand held wands, great for crystal healing!

healing wand in wood case by kizzys.glass, on Flickr

Irene · September 21, 2014, 07:03:03 PM

Ever since I saw a frog on a bead for the first time, I wanted to make one, and yesterday I finally had a go. This little guy is my very first frog, and he was very fun to make, but I was so scared the Whole time fearing the bead would crack , legs would pop off or melt into a mess. But here he is and I like him.