Reichenbach glass and mixing CoE....

I have recently rediscovered a CoE 96 Reichenbach glass rod sample pack purchased way back in 2008. 

I stashed it away out of sight because it is CoE 96 and all the other glass rods I had in the studio at that time were CoE 104. It is a common practice in lampwork to mix CoE 94-96 furnace glass frit with 104 in small amounts (5% rule of thumb) but for some reason, probably the fact that this furnace glass came to me in rod form, I was thrown on how to get started with it and then I forgot I even had it (tsk tsk tsk).

The beads above are a base of CiM Peace decorated with tiny dots of Reichenbach 141 Cherry Red placed with a 1mm thick stringer. This glass is a striker but I found that it coloured up quickly and evenly for me. The dot work is very bright and vibrant with a kind of soft (as opposed to crisp) looking outline against the white. My favourite bead from this set is the soft looking twisted rose at the back.

To the right are beads made with Reichenbach 009 Fuchsia. This colour is utterly glorious! My favourite bead from this set is the twisted wave bead (top right). The deeper crisp looking dots were made by the fragment of stringer left behind when using the Fuchsia stringer as the twisting tool.

I did experiment with a third colour in the same time torch session but have no pretty pictures to show. I tried out Reichenbach 730 Copper Ruby Extra but completely failed to coax (strike) any colour out of it at all. Still 2 out of three's not bad :-D

I am really pleased with my first experiments with that glorious bundle of forgotten colour. The super saturated furnace glass colours bring something very special to these simple designs.

Wishing you a fabulous bank holiday weekend, Jo x