Raku carrot murrini

Raku carrot murrini

I’m unsure about this lot! They don’t always strike that easily, and when they do you can get some odd effects. I suspect I might keep using the ones I have and probably not make more in this exact recipe. They can be interesting, at least. They contain transparent amethyst, carrot red and raku, with hades and triton lines.

Raku carrot murrini in use

A few in-use closeups. The first was from a bead I showed in this post (the kalypso blot). The second two were on a bead with some CiM gunmetal on the surface, and all sorts of strange things happened.

Gunmetal and murrini

You can see it above. It’s baby blue with some gunmetal on top. Not reduced – you just need to waft the gunmetal about in a neutral flame and it’ll do its thing. The murrini have colours all right, but are also a bit weird and seem to have bleeding going on.

Raku orange kalera

This bead has a base of tongue pink (or striking terracotta, as Julie of Lush Lampwork is trying to rename it!) and wings of opaque and striking orange. The murrini on one side struck a bit, the one on the other side refused to at all, but has developed a thin black outline. My terracotta is variably struck :p

Raku orange kalera - other side

Above’s the other side. showing the one that didn’t strike.

I haven’t used these encased at all yet – must remember to try that and see what colours I get. I haven’t tried reducing them because the raku will just go silvery and I don’t think there’ll be much to look at. Might be worth a try anyway just to confirm it. I’ll add it to the ever-expanding to-do list!

Off-mandrel hearts

Serendipitously, Holly of Holly’s Folly Glass posted this off-mandrel heart tutorial and I thought “Ooh, that looks interesting” so I went off to have a go.

First off-mandrel heart

First try! I used a thick rod of transparent pale blue for the base and added twistie ends in neutral and green. I twisted the centres, shaped the heart end and added a loop in baby blue (tricky!). Then I held the heart in my reverse-action tweezers, not the loop, in case it might shock. I took off the rod and heated the end to round off, then tried to put the heart into my kiln… but the tweezers wouldn’t let go! So I stuck it in my annealing bubbles to cool down. My tweezers have very thin pointy ends, and one of them had got embedded in the glass. I hadn’t put them in the flame, but I most have got them too hot anyway because it was well and truly stuck. In the end I just bent off the tweezers, so now one of the points is shorter than the other, and the remains are still in this bead… After this, I used my needlenose pliers instead and always hold the loop!

I made heart 2 (the blue one below) in the same way, without the mishap. Then I read Mr Smiley’s heart tutorial (there are pics later on in the thread) and I made more… and more. They’re fun and rather addictive, but I still find the loops tricky!

Blue and pink off-mandrel hearts

Blue heart: pale blue with a blue twistie and a green+brown twistie.
Pink heart: Reichenbach mystic pink mixed about with Lauscha soft clear. Goldstone ribbon on the surface and encased. The shape has a bit too much on one side for my liking.

Citrine twistie heart

This heart is Lauscha citrine with my red roof tile twistie. There were a couple in between the pink heart and this one, but they’re off to the Valentine’s swap so I won’t show them yet. The RRT twistie hasn’t been a great success – basically it may as well be RRT and hades only, because those are the colours that take over.

Opalino raku heart

I really like this one. It’s a white opalino base with coe 96 raku frit. I didn’t strike the frit properly, though I did get the opalino hot enough that it’s started displaying faint black spiderwebbing in places. Neither of which I mind – I think it gives it a delicate look, and the muted colours go well with it.

After the class

Triton

When these came out of the kiln, you could say that I was pleased!

Triton caterpillar over CiM mermaid (you can see a little bit of mermaid in the second pic, but not much is visible) with SiS on one end and a magic+hades twistie on the other. Look at the colours in the magic!

Triton view 2

The next one uses Ekho:

Ekho

Using Anouk’s secret recipe for hot pinks! Actually, I have no idea if that is a secret or not, but she is doing a third silver glass tutorial that will cover it. I think the wraps on the ends were multicolour dark.

Aurae

This is aurae spiralled over Reichenbach mystic pink. The wisps have more iridescence in person. The surface is triton dots and one of my triton murrini, believe it or not! I think I reduced multiple times for it to end up like this.

I haven’t quite got as good results since, from the ekho at least. But I’ve been zipping about trying out different glass, so it probably just needs a bit of attention. I like triton, it’s well-behaved!

BHB raku and MCD

This BHB is raku over opaque orange, encased and with multicolour dark on the ends. Plus my triton murrini, that were reduced and then covered in dots of clear. This has made them go a paler blue-silver. I was surprised how the raku came out! It’s unusually uniform and looks rather like standard multicolour. I do like the colour though – it’s muted but very pretty.

I also created an enormous fugly monstrosity of a lentil that has many things wrong with it, but these things happen!

At this point, my silver glass stash included triton and aurae, plus some stringers (including the Ekho) and single rods I got from Knatty Dreadz when he was still selling them. It didn’t take me very long after the class to place a nice big order with Double Helix for their seconds! (These are rods that have failed visual quality control – ie they may be slightly knobbly or curved or oval. To be honest, I can’t tell the difference with most of them, and most glass manufacturers would happily sell them as firsts. Got me some aether too – their clear, which I am yet to try).

When it comes to clear, Anouk recommends Reichenbach 1011 crystal, because it doesn’t affect the colour of the silver glass and can also be worked long and hot without ill effects. The beads above are using Effetre 006 because it’s what I had. My batch is decent, but I have noticed you can’t work it quite as hot.

Mystic pink supernova

A final thing to sign off: this is mystic pink with stormed supernova dots and clear dots. Lauscha supernova isn’t the same as Double Helix reduction colours: you don’t get an easy surface sheen by reducing it – I spent a long time and it stayed purple! It’s a very nice purple, though. However, it can be stormed. Storming is a technique by Amy Kinsch, see her tutorial Taking Reduction Glass By Storm.

New torch!

On December 21st 2010 I finally got my Minor set up! I’d bought the Minor second hand off eBay earlier in the year, and got my oxycon from Tuffnell’s in mid-September. Then I sat and made convoluted plans about how I was going to connect everything up while keeping my hothead usable if I so wished. There were various complications: apparently quick connects for 6mm ID propane hose don’t seem to exist in this country (I think Martin’s are imported – they cost more than 4x UK 8mm ones), and ones for 8mm hose, despite a heroic effort, do not fit. I was sent on a chase round the local gas, tool hire and hardware shops, but it turns out they don’t think that reducers exist to attach 6mm and 8mm hose together, and they don’t know who could crimp a new hose on to my flashback arrestor and regulator either.

I’d waited so long to put everything together to avoid the situation where I’d take my torch setup to bits and then discover that I’d be stuck without a working one. In the end, I’ve left out the quick connects for now and have my Minor attached directly to my 6mm hose. I have the rest of the bits sitting around in case I ever do find someone who can put them together for me, but this isn’t urgent anymore as I have a working torch! Poor hothead, it’s lying there with a chopped-off hose tail attached to it.

I liked my hothead a lot, but there were things that I couldn’t do on it that I wanted to. I went for a Minor because I’m familiar with them (my very first lesson was on one, and I’ve used one a couple of times since), I like how rugged they feel, and unlike many other people, I didn’t like the feel of a Cricket as much. As a bonus, mine came complete with a torch-mounted marver which I’m finding very useful.

The first thing I did was to try out some striking colours I’d only got mud from before. That’s Reichenbach 104 magic and raku (iris orange) then. I had one day playing with my Minor before I was away up North for Christmas to stay with various families. Yes, I was missing it, but I took plenty to keep me occupied! Plus my boyfriend’s mum was teaching me to crochet :)

Reichenbach magic

There are definitely colours in there! The whole bead is magic, and it’s been pressed and raked and twisted. They’re fairly muted colours, but they exist! Before I was only getting a yellow-green beige.

Magic twistie

This is a magic + hades twistie on tongue pink. This was interesting because tongue pink is also a striking colour – it goes from white to pinky-brown, and it’s rather easy to unstrike again, so I spent a while trying to get both the twistie and the background to be struck at the same time.

Raku on tuxedo

This is the one that left me grinning, though. 104 raku on CiM tuxedo. I got the whole thing white hot, let it gravity swirl a little, then pressed it. Add some additional heating and pressing. I love the colours – they look like a sunset. Or sunrise, if you prefer.

Raku rounds

These are also raku on tuxedo, but in the earthier end of the colours. It’s hard to get it hot enough on a round without losing all control over the shape, and also hard to cool it fast enough with no press involved.

Gaffer chalcedony

This here is Gaffer chalcedony over Gaffer clear, both 96CoE. Jolene very kindly gave me some to play with! It has some nice purples in it.

MCD kalera

Finally, this one makes me giggle. It’s a big ruffly lime jelly of a bead. It is transparent grass green and Reichenbach multicolour dark in a bit of an unclear tornado with the side ruffles made up of both colours. Possibly ill-advised!