silver wire turning brown

[treatubeads]

Please can anyone help?  Every time I place my silver wire onto my bead and then encase it with clear, when it cools there is always a brown brassy look to the silver dot??? Have not burnt it as I did not put back in flame just encased straight away!  Going mad here! Please help!!!

[Magpie]

Fine silver? Sterling will discolour. Also fine silver will discolour the clear to some extent, give you a brownish yellow tinge.

[treatubeads]

yes think it is fine silver.  it never used to happen but seems to do it nowadays, thought I may have greasy hands but even cleaning it does not help. Thanks for advice.

[Krysia@No98]

Where did you get the wire from?  I have in the past bought sterling only to find that it is fine.

The only think that will clean the sterling silver dots is an acid that is referred to as pickle, but I would expect that to etch the glass a bit as well

[Glyn Burton]

Silver has been used for hundreds of years to give yellow/brown stains to glass. Some glass reacts more readily with silver, are you using a different glass to encase? If you want a silver coloured metal in your glass try Palladium it is very stable.
The acid used to clean the silver is normally sulfuric or you can use a safety pickle neither of which will etch the glass.

[Lush!]

The pickle won't help if the silver is encased.  Try turning up your oxygen a touch when using the silver and encasing it, any extra whiff of reduction can cause the silver to fume the surrounding glass and give a yellow discolouration.

[afina]

Try to encsase not with clear but with a very light coppery colour, such as pale acquamarine, or a pale blue transparent. This can help avoid the brownish reaction. Also some clears react more (Lauscha is one of them) than others.

[JaySpangles]

This forum is such a remarkable font of knowledge.  Thanks for all who have offered advice to a question I have often pondered over.

[Redhotsal]

If it's happening now but never used to it would indicate that you might have changed your encasing glass. Major culprits for turning silver brown are Lauscha clear and CIM clear. Effetre 006 is a lot better at keeping the silver "silvery" but if you hit it too hot - say the first bit of glass which goes on when you encase  - then you can get the brassy/browning effect. You can sometimes heat it out gently - but then your silver wire will go "bobbly" as it melts into little balls as opposed to remaining as a single strand. I find it sometimes helps to heat the silver a little before I encase it. i.e.if you notice the brown silver as soon as youv'e encased you can sometimes eradicate this by reheating the bead until it's glowing orange.
However, there are come colours where you are destined for brassy looking colour - Clio and pink will often do this.
By the way - it's not "you" - it happens to the rest of us aswell. 

[Krysia@No98]

The pickle won't help if the silver is encased.  Try turning up your oxygen a touch when using the silver and encasing it, any extra whiff of reduction can cause the silver to fume the surrounding glass and give a yellow discolouration.

good point I'm awake - honest 

[treatubeads]

Oh wow!  Thank you sooo much for all your advice, it is a case of seeing how I do it and trying different techniques, thanks ever so much.  I really appreciate all your input. Will have another go and see what happens.  : )