boro advice

[turnedlight]

I'm still just starting out, can make the bead shapes ok and have a selection of exotic sounding colours - I'm still not sure how to get the milky misty colours I love, I presume you have to reduce more than soft glass. I'm not sure which colours are reducing and which are not either - any tips for me?

[Steampunkglass]

It's a tricky one to answer, it depends alot on what you've got, also if you are one one or two oxys. When I was on one oxys I found everything reduced anyway  If you over reduce alot of rods (especially I found the more opaque ones) will go a horriable pale brown, and won't change back as all the nice stuff that makes the effects has burnt away 

I guess the easiest way to get those misty stormy sort of effects will be to use some of the amber purples. With those you have to get them really, really hot to burn away the haze, then if you touch the heat back to them after they've cooled a little the haze should come back. Alternatively just after you've melted them in put some clear over the top which will lock in some of that haze and stop it burning away.

However after saying all that, it's a bit of trial and error until you find ways of working that you like.

[turnedlight]

ok, thanks - I do have a bit of amber purple, I will play some more..

[garishglobes]

I would go for a stronger amber purple, ie Double Amber Purple or the equivalent (Silver Beach from Momka, Loki's Lipstick from Northstar, Triple Passion or Mega Mai Tai). Have you got any clear frit? Try putting a very thin wrap of colour round the mandrel, burn off as much haze as you can, roll in frit or dot with clear. Then melt in and either encase or, for a different and more wispy effect, heat the bejeezus out of it and smoosh clear on, mixing the colour into the clear as it goes round if you see what I mean. Note that you need strong bead release! Then encase some more.
If you aren't using a striking part to your annealing program (and to be honest, it is a good thing not to when you start in my opinion, because it tells you more about how the glass behaves), cool the bead. Cool it until, when you have it under the bench, you can't see it glow. Then reintroduce it to the back of the flame and heat gently. You are aiming for a constant heat at just the right temperature to grow those colour making crystals. It takes a bit of working out what this temperature looks like, but I'd say, only just glowing. You should be able to see the colour change.

Glass Alchemy have a really good resource on colour and striking and so on - worth reading. http://www.glassalchemy.com/cart/article_list