encasing silver glass

[Ness]

I couldn't resist having a wee go with a rod of Monet Silver Amethyst, I put dots on a clear bead and because my encasing is very dodgy I put clear dots on top, and melted in.  The middle dots look gorgeous, but some of the outer ones have little colour and others have haloes. 

Can someone give me some tips about encasing silver glass, please???  I'd love to know how to get the best I can from the few rods I have.  I'm not going to bother witht the striking colours while I'm still using a HH.

I've also seen some lovely beads with wispy looking silver glass in them.... can anyone shed some light on how to achieve the wispiness?

Many thanks in advance

[Ness]

Anyone??   

[BeadyBugs]

Hi Ness,

Glad to hear you're having a bash at silver glass, I was always rubbish at it on a HH, but I know some people who got it to behave.  There are quite a few threads on here about silver glass if you have a root around.  Here are a few to get you started:

http://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1494.0
http://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2491.0
http://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=9038.0

And the wispy beads could be anything?  They may be COE 104 silver glass, faux-boro, or maybe even actual boro glass which can go wispy (COE 33)?  You'll have to tell us which ones you mean, to give us a clue.

I hope you get some good results. 

HP x

[Lush!]

Hi Ness
This is something I am constantly struggling with too!  I recently got really excited when I achieved the wispiness for the first time - but its by no means reliable!  I also use the "dot" encasing method cos my encasing is pants.

Try a dot of dark ivory with a dot of silver glass on top, give it lots of heating and cooling and then a spot of gentle reduction - then chuck a dot of clear on top - and cross your fingers!

Also, I get the best results with the transparent silver glasses, like Aurae and Olympia Rain.  As far as I know you can only get Aurae from America .. and you can't get OR at all!!  I would definitely recommend trying Aurae though, its very easy to reduce and gives a lovely metallic pink also.

[dinah46]

da vinci transparent will do the wispy thing as well

[Ness]

Thank you, great threads, great tips....  

[Hayley]

If you want to keep the iridescence/reduction after encasing silver glass, you need to keep the reduced part of the bead out of the flame when you put the clear on. And try to melt the clear slower than normal - too much heat also erases the reduction.

As for the wispy effects on silver glass, there are quite a few glasses out that are wispy on their own - try Double Helix Aion (on a dark transparent base and encase in clear), TAG 104 Zeus, GTG Mountain Honey.

Hope this helps!

For those of you who may want to encase striking silver glass, you need to encase it after the first strike when the bead is dark brown/purple or you will not get the darker, rich colors.

Sorry I am still new here . . . One of these days, I will figure out how to post pictures on this site! 

[Ness]

Thanks Hayley - that's wonderful advice.

Oh, and welcome!!!
I use photobucket to post pics, but I'm pretty much a newbie too!

[Trudi]

cool tips  - and thanks!