Not everything in life is black and white...

I've been planning to do some black and white comparison testing for ages. I wanted to put several different black CoE 104 glass rods through their paces in a diluted form by drawing them out over CiM Peace as twistie cane. The colours I am comparing in this post are:

• CiM Charcoal
• Vetrofond Black 064
• CiM Hades
• Effetre Black 064
• CiM Tuxedo

I made a simple striped twistie cane, an encased twistie cane and a ribbon style cane with each of these black glasses and CiM Peace. The beads below show the simple striped twistie over CiM Journey ltd run (which is a stiff transparent glass).

1. The bead on the left was made with the CiM Charcoal twistie. The black in this twistie has crept towards the centre on the cane forming a thick black line along the centre with short narrow black spokes on either side like a tyre tread print.
2. The second is Vetrofond Black 064, this glass has seemed to react with the CiM Peace base giving extra fine stripes between the "real" ones. This glass has appeared to dilute down to a darkish grey.
3. Third up  up is CiM Hades, the behaviour this cane here is similar to the Charcoal one but the Hades has spread width ways as well giving the appearance of  a thick black line along the centre of the cane with short wide black spokes on either side.This effect looks "smokier" than the Charcoal one.
4. The fourth bead is made with  Effetre Black 064, this glass has diluted down to a vibrant purplish blackcurrant colour. As with the Vetrofond there has been a reaction with the Peace base to give the appearance of extra stripes.
5. Lastly my CiM Tuxedo twistie over Journey, this cane has melted flat to give similar tyre track effect to the other CiM blacks but it has a slight deep purple cast to it.

These next beads show my encased striped twistie over CiM African Grey ltd run, a lovely rich muted grey which is a fairly hard to find now. I've used Effetre 006 clear in my twistie canes.

1. The first bead here has been made with an encased CiM Charcoal cane which has inhibited the glass's natural tendency to spread. The diluted Charcoal here has remained true black looking.
2. The second is Vetrofond Black 064, the encasing has stopped the spreading and illusion of extra lines shown with the unencased cane. The stripes on this bead look deep a blue/grey.
3. Next up is CiM Hades, as with Charcoal, the spreading tendency has been inhibited and the stripes still look very black.
4. The fourth bead is made with  Effetre Black 064, as expected, no additional reaction lines this time and an obviously blackcurrant/purplish colour.
5. Fifth, CiM Tuxedo twistie over Journey, again no spreading and the diluted glass also appears to remain relatively black with a very slight purplish cast. 

As far as encased twistie cane with fine stripes goes, there appears to be only a very slight difference in intensity and hue between the three CiM glass colours I have tested. If I was splitting hairs I would say that Tuxedo appeared darkest but Hades appeared to stay most black.

This last picture shows beads made with ribbon twistie over a small core of CiM Peace. Each bead was then encased with Effetre 006 clear glass. This form of twistie shows each glass in its most diluted form as cane.

 

1. The first is CiM Charcoal which has an ethereal smokey quality to it. The colour has remained quite black but become quite transparent.
2. The second is Vetrofond Black 064 which now has a transparent and wispy blue grey hue
3. Next up is CiM Hades, very black looking and appearing to be fairly dense
4. The fourth bead is made with  Effetre Black 064, distinctly different in colour from all of my other test beads, it is fairly translucent and again blackcurrant looking. 
5. Last up is CiM Tuxedo ribbon twistie over Peace. In the flesh this twistie is noticeably more translucent that the Hades bracelet bead but that has not proven very easy to capture in my picture.

In conclusion:

Effetre and Vetrofond black have a fun reaction over Peace.

Neither Effetre or Vetrofond black hold their black colour well in dilute form.

All three of these CiM blacks are spreaders in dilute form.

For encased twistie with fine black stripes head for Tuxedo as on balance it is the least expensive and most readily available of the three CiM glasses tested.

Charcoal, Effetre black and Vetrofond black make cool looking wispy ribbon twistie.

In all of these  pictures CiM Tuxedo is darkest looking but is not the truest black hue. CiM Hades holds its black tone the best in dilute form.

Jolene x

Frit N Chips lampwork supplies Kitzbitz Art Beads Buzzword Bracelet Beads

Tuxedo Shimmer Stringer

Tuxedo can do such magical things when you throw silver and propane in the mix!

To create this shimmering iridescent effect I burnished some silver leaf on to a gather of Tuxedo and pulled stringer. Khaki was a fab choice as the base to decorate with my silvered Tuxedo stringer as I wanted to see how the silver would fume the Khaki and create a secondary reactive effect. Each bead has been wafted quickly through a reduction (propane rich) flame before just garaging to bring out the shimmering effects. The spacers are there as a comparison so that it easy to see the fumed areas on the Khaki glass caused by silver vapour fuming from the tiny fine silver droplets coating the tuxedo stringer.

Silvered Tuxedo stringer over Khaki

I wanted to try out silvered Tuxedo stringer on some other warm hued honey like colours next and so made these half and half Stone Ground/Maple rounds.

Silvered Tuxedo stringer over Stone Ground and Maple

Silvered Tuxedo stringer over Stone Ground and Maple

As you can see neither the Maple nor Stone Ground has been affected by the silver content of the stringer in any significant way. As before, each bead has been wafted quickly through a reduction flame before just garaging to bring out the shimmering effects.

Fumed Tuxedo/Silvered Tuxedo stringer

The small disc beads in the pic below have been fumed with fine silver in a fairly propane rich reduction flame - nothing happened until I turned the oxygen right down. I found that the results are a little flat, dull and inconstant for me after seeing the beautiful shimmers, silver droplets and hints of iridescence that I have been able to achieve with the silvered Tuxedo stringer.










The large oval bead in this picture is a Tuxedo base, with silvered Tuxedo stringer, wafted quickly through a reduction flame.

I am a little bit disappointed with the results of pure fuming over a plain base of Tuxedo, perhaps this is simply due to my inexperience with the fuming technique as there is definitely an evident reaction between fine silver and this glass. For me less is more when it comes to throwing silver at Tuxedo and so although I won't try fuming it again, I will definitely be making more silvered stringer.

Jolene x
Kitzbitz