Pendant Beads - Technique Explorations

While completing some testing of new CiM - Creation is Messy glasses, I decided to try out various techniques in order to check the test glasses compatibility with other COE 104 glass brands.
As a lampworker, it is important to "respect the COE" to ensure that all glasses within a bead work together properly. The risk of not following the guidelines results in a cracked bead and lost of the time spent on making the bead in the first place.

For those that are not in the loop on the concept of COE, here is a link that outlines the scientific principle of Coefficient of Expansion.

First up, CiM Yellow Brick Road Ltd Run. It is an opaque yellow on which I sprinkled some Glass Diversions Persian Paisley frit and created the twists in the melted in frit. 
The spacers are another new CiM glass called Painted Hills Ltd Run.

Same technique in the bead below, in a round bead.  Notice in the Painted Hills Ltd Run spacer to the far right, it has a slight color change to a peachy pink in the yellow glass where it was heated a bit warmer while shaping the bead.

 

Same base glass and same frit again, now encased in Effetre clear glass and dotted with Double Helix Aurae silver glass.

Same spacers in the set below. The centre bead is a core of clear glass, encased in a Double Helix silver infused glass and a third layer of clear glass was added. 

The technique used here is reduction and encasement. By change the mix of propane and oxygen brings the silver glass to a shine and captures the reaction under a clear glass encasement. The striations of yellows and blues is unique in each bead.

The last bead in this post used the same glasses as the set above. Starting on a clear glass base, the silver glass was added. Once it was melted in, I used a tungston pick to make indentations in the bead and covered each "dent" with clear glass. This creates a bubbles of air in the bead known the "plunged dot" technique.

I wrapped the bead shoulders in Double Helix Aurae silver infused glass and reduced the melted glass to a pinky shine.

Til next time, 

D.