What's Going On ...

Have a great time at the torch today! Oh how I wish I were at my own torch right now. Haven't done anything for two weeks! Whatever you create will be beautiful - it always is Donna! Its so much fun to experiment with new techniques, isn't it!?

What is a lap grinder. And are you allowed to say how Kim went about showing you the techniquest to get the metals to show all those fabulous colors? I love reading the technical information on bead making. It might bore others, but when you go into depth about how you did this and that, I am fascinated. Have fun melting glass.
Evil E.

I should have used the phrase "Lapidary Grinder", cause I think 'lap grinder' could have other meanings, right Katie?? A Lapidary Grinder has disks that are like round like Albums - each one is a different grit...when you want to facet a bead, you can grind it down, using the various sized grits until you have it smooth...it looks very cool if you make a bead, encase it in thick glass, and then grind parts of it to 'peek' into..lemme see if I can get some pics...

the beads from Kim's class are made using a lot of opaques that do fun things, as well as using intense black stringer - it likes to break up and 'web', and also reacts with some of the glass...she also had us rolling some of the beads in silver leaf and copper leaf, and we fumed the bottom 3 to change the colors to caramel and mahogany...fuming is taking .999 silver and holding it in the flame until it combusts into gas particles, and the reaction between the glass and silver causes the color shifts...Ivory turns caramel, Coral goes mahogany... other colors do other things (hence, I'm playing and exploring)...She also uses reduction glass that is heavy in metals to get some neat reactions as well...and some of the colors are just more saturated and make for nice accents on the beads...so far I've made one large lentil and fumed it, its in the kiln right now....i'm heading back to see what other stuff the glass will do...i haven't fumed opaques before, and so its fun to experiment and see what they will do...hope that helps a bit...