Dream Fire Glass: January 2014

Flameworking Bullseye COE 90 Glass

This is a little project I have been wanted to do for a while.

Every month I will have a link on my newsletter to this blog.

I will be posting some of the things I have learned about Flameworking Bullseye glass.

The plan is over time to have a tip about every standard color they make in rod.

The tips are just my thoughts on what I have learned over the years and are not indorsed by Bullseye or the end all be all word on the glass – just what I know and want to share.

So let’s get started!

I want to cover 3 colors that are staples in my studio.

1101 Clear – this is one of the reasons I “came to the dark side”. Bullseye clear is consistently clean and clear. No junk, no scum, no chunks of who knows what. I really like to make encased beads and if the clear stinks so does the bead. 1101 come in 2 sizes regular 4-5mm and larger rods 7-8 mm depending on what I am making I use both sizes. I really like the larger size for making canes and murinni.

1401 Crystal clear- I get a lot of questions on this one. What is the difference? The main difference for us flameworkers is what in does not react with. If you are encasing silver then you need 1401 Crystal clear it does not have the unpleasant reaction with silver that 1101 does. That reaction being the silver will oxidize (turn black or dark). In my humble opinion you only need 1401 if you are planning on working with metals in your beads.

0137 – French Vanilla – Ahhh (sung in a high voice like angels) OMG how we love French Vanilla let me count the ways.

1. It is the only Bullseye white that plays nice with the Hot Head torch. Other whites do not like the lack of O2 and turn some undesirable colors in the flame chemistry of the Hot Head. 2. It is a very nice creamy white when flameworked. 3. It reacts in some cool ways with anything that has copper or silver in it. 4. If you use it for a base bead it really will help keep it from cracking when you encase it. I think it is the viscosity of FV that makes it more forgiving. I could go on all day about it but for now that’s it

0101 – Stiff black – OK here is the flameworking truth about Bullseye black there really isn’t any difference in 0100 – black and stiff black.
One could argue that in fusing the stiff black doesn’t run but we heat out glass way hotter than the kiln so for a flameworker there really isn’t a difference. I only have stiff black in my studio because I only need one black and on the off chance it is a tad bit less likely to bleed into a bead if I over heat it I go with stiff black. You can pull a relatively thin stringer with it and it stay black but if you are going to make the hair like stringers we are seeing in some bead you are not going to get a strong black. My suggestion is encase the black with a thin layer of clear and then pull your stringer if you need it extra thin.

Tip: don’t “boil” your beads if you want black lines to not bleed.

That’s it for this month

Sam