Gaffer Experiments

Deb Batten and Mallory Hoffman turned me on to Gaffer Chalcedony a long time ago. I have other Gaffer Glass and have been doing just a smidgen of playing lately. These are the results of my play. The oblong one is Chalcedony over black/ encased/ with black tips. The one that was squeezed has kind of a kitchen sink approach. The base was Hyacinth, and there is chalcedony (not used to it's advantage by any means), a green lustre, black, and I think a dense black - then it was all encased. It has potential...I need to leave a few of the ingredients out.

One of the things I have to tell you is that this glass works like butter. It's not that it is soupy - it is not. Maybe honey would be a better descriptor. But what I want to tell you is that hands down there is nothing that goes on the way their clear does for encasement. Yeah, I know you can't mix those COE's up. Well, don't. But this clear wraps around in nice little neat circles one on top another. You could stop there and let them stand up and they'd be these optical waves of what is underneath them. It would be a great bead. But, when you heat this encasement up it smoothies itself out and lays flat over it's core - evenly - cleanly - without scum. It's so smooth and skinny no one might even guess that you had added that one extra step. Sometime when you are encasing a Effetre' bead or something else you begin in the same way and pretty soon you are dragging up bits of the the wonderful design you made underneath. Not with that Gaffer, it just tends to stand up in those ridges and slowly melt down in to a perfect flat encasement.

I've been doing beads for over 17 years and have not ever run across how juicy and phenomenal it is. If you haven't tried it call those Gaffer girls up and pick some some rods. You won't be sorry and they are a great help when you can so don't be shy.

I'm going to keep experimenting and I'll post those results here when I get them. Also, if you have an cool combination ideas - post them for me on the blog and I will try to work it out pretty good if I have the glass on had.

Any suggestions will be most graciously accepted.

Sharon