Hello again! Back for more? Interested in the glass? Morbid curiosity? Avoiding working on those spreadsheets at work? Hey, no worries. Pull up a cup of coffee and hang out.
As you might know I bought some of the Devardi borosilicate to try out independently, partly to see if I like it, partly to share an unbiased review.
The testing continued, albeit with the same colors, but I wanted to see how this glass played along with Simax clear borosilicate. It’s one of the more common brands of clear used, and it happens to be what mostly use.
For a small test, I made simple encased beads. These are quick and easy and generally sufficient to demonstrate incompatibility. I’m pleased to say I only had one crack, and I’m pretty sure it’s a thermal crack, that is the glasses played together nicely, the bead just had cooling and heating issues.
First up, the turquoise glass. I have to say that aside from the cracking and chunking while it’s being applied, this is pretty nice to work with. It holds it’s color very well where another turquoise I’ve tried reduced to red. As you can see, it held up nicely under the clear.
It's a little out of focus, sorry
Next up was the orange. I was a bit worried about this one because it tends to bubble easily while working. However it encased nicely. The one that cracked is all the way to the left. Oddly, the bead didn’t come apart when I took it off the mandrel.
Orange under clear
These are the cobalt blue, no clear over top. I was wondering if the devit problem would hang around and lo and behold, it did not.
Not the most transparent of transparent glasses
Just for poo and laughs, I decided to try out the stick of red I bought. I have to say, I was impressed. I’m very good at causing reds to liver and this one held up well. From left to right, the beads are: pure red, red with clear over top, red over white.
Not bad, not bad. Kind of a tomato red
I played with some combos too. Recall I said that when thinned the black appears to be a saturated blue? Well when thick it looks more greenish. On the left is black with some brown dots. On the left is a white bead with a cobalt blue wrap. You can still see the lines in the white.
Black? Try olive green. That blue's nice over white though.
I wanted to see how the glass does deep encased as well, plus I figured I’d go all out on the turquoise to see what it’ll do under a lot of heat. One note, I realized this morning I used Schott Artistic for the clear in this marble rather than Simax. Generally you only see a difference between the two when it comes to fuming, so the differences here should be minimal.
All in all, I’m glad to say that the glass moved nicely under the clear. I was a little apprehensive about the orange since it was bubbling some while I was working the clear down, but it seems to be ok. There’s obviously more bubbles in there than I wanted, but it’s possible I just didn’t work the initial chill marks out up front.
Not pictured, the punty scar I missed @#$%
All of the color on this marble is the Devardi glass. I used the orange, white, cobalt, and then the turquoise on the outside. I may do a test marble to see if the turquoise and lily pad can encase, but I’m not optimistic it’ll live.
Good color retention
Here’s the outside. I’m not that sure about the pitting; I either left bubbles or some schtuff came out of the torch. I know I saw something ricochet off the surface at one point. I heated the snot out of this turquoise glass though and it held the color, so they get some points there.
So far, other than the white being a fugly mess, and the turquoise breaking up while I was applying it, I’m not feeling like I wasted my money here. Frankly if I mixed and drew down the turquoise rod some, I think it would work better.
There may be one more post about this at some point, but for now, I hope you found this helpful. I’d say if you’re interested, pick some up, but do a few experiments before you go full out into a project. I haven’t tested cross company compatibility so your mileage may vary. Play safe!