How to RUIN your bead release
 

Please feel free to tack on any additional suggestions for ruining your bead release. I am posting these only so you really know what to avoid, not really because I think you should ruin your bead release.

1.) leave in hot car in Phoenix for a couple hours. It will turn to almost like water and never turn back. It actually gets partially fired. Temp in car in Phx is about 180 F, other parts of the country may try this but it will take slightly longer. Hot metal mail box can work too, but not as fast.

2.) use water from a house/business with a water softening system. The stuff used to break down hard minerals in the "soft" water will weaken your bead release.

3.) from a customer of mine - heat a mandrel to red hot then plunge into a jar of bead release. It did the thing where it turns to almost-water like consistancy and never turned back.

What will not ruin your bead release is letting it dry out, even if it dries out completely. Just add good water and mix well. Viola! ready to go once again.

Adding different brands of bead release together is fine - I don't know what you will get, but you should still have something usable if both were OK to start with. Lewis Wilson likes FosterFire Heavy (2/3) mixed with Fusion (1/3).

What about leaving it outside in below freezing weather and having it freeze solid?

Thin it out with water from a container, while forgetting that the water in the container has dishsoap in it from soaking beads.

Shake the bead release, and marvel at how the bubbles just foam and foam like something from a horror film.

I don't know about solid, but my bead release has gotten slushy and was just fine when it thawed.

pouring your diet pepsi in it instead of the water you thought was in that bottle.....

now that is bad Suzy....

Plunging a hot mandrel in my beadrelease never caused any trouble, just hissed a lot and made a bit of a mess.

frozen solid... never happened, but almost solid, no problem after thawing

I'll let you know--I've got a small bottle of fusion & a medium bottle of "assorted" fosterfire (half regular, a quarter heavy duty, the rest is various forms of water I've reconstituted it with over time--it's likely dried out completely *again* by now!!) that is "lost in storage" right now--it's been there since um, january...by the time I find it, it could be there a full year :roll: Should be interesting to see if either of them is usuable when I find them!! (somewhere in there is 100+ mandrels too...sigh...)

Only problem I have had with my release is shaking it without the lid.



Come to think of it, that is more my problem. :)

eewww, that would be a fine mess.

What is sad, is that I have done it more than once. What kind of dufus am I?

teflon tape ( for plumbing) works great around the threads on top of jar .

I've been loving my Foster Fire since I got it (long time ago) until recently. Beads are sticking and I lost some focals. I thought it was because my mandrels were old, but it's even sticking a little on the second use of brand new mandrels. Did I thin it too much? Can dirt getting it ruin it?

I think the Foster Fire people need a warning label saying 'DO NOT MIX WITH SOFTENED WATER!' I ruined a 16 oz (almost new) bottle before I found out this.....talk about cracking bead release..........I could have cried, and I probably did!

Well, I am the FosterFire people. All of them, actually, unless you count the 2springer spaniels and some help from hubby. I use contract labor sometimes, but mostly it's just me. We pay about $1000 at a time to get labels printed and didn't know about the soft water thing at the time of the last printing.

For the "I've been loving my Foster Fire since I got it (long time ago) until recently." problem, my best guess is the mixing. If you don't mix well before each use the good mix doesn't stay all the way mixed. Some ingredients settle to the bottom.

Best suggestion? Buy a new jar and you can use the old jar to add to the new one a bit at a time. You will still be able to use the old stuff but you will again have a mix that works.

Freezing doesn't hurt the bead release. Done it here for testing.

Adding a couple of round wonky beads to the jar will help it mix more when you shake it. That's way spray paint cans rattle. The doohicky inside is helping it get mixed up.

Please shake well before each use of the any bead release. Ummm, make sure the lid is on tight first.

with old bead release too, make sure you are thinning it down with non softened water if it has gotten thick on you. Even with turning the label down like you are supposed to, evaporation does occur.

Huh?

Since I have a pre-official-release version of the Smooth and Tuff (no real label), can I have this advice in terms of the lid? Should I keep the jar standing lid up or lid down?

Thorough mixing makes a HUGE difference. When I got my big jar of S&T I was one of the very few unhappy campers because it cracked and flaked like crazy. I thought something unspeakable must have happened to it in the shipping process, even though it still looked pretty normal. Robin sent me a little sample bottle, and that worked pretty well, so when that ran out I went back to the big bottle. I threw some wonkies into the bottom and then stirred it and mixed it and stirred it and mixed it and stirred it and mixed it -- threw some shaking in there too. Basically I mixed it to the limits of my endurance, then I thinned it to the point where it would no longer hold a peak. And it works. Holds pretty darn well, comes off really easily, and cleans out really easily. I can still make it crack, but I think I can make any bead release crack. I've accepted that I am to bead release what the Inquisition was to persons of unorthodox opinions.


(I'm not suggesting that you'll need to go insane with the mixing the way I did. Be nice and thorough when you first get yours, and maybe if you have trouble be extra-thorough. Mine may have gotten baked on a shipping truck on the way from Arizona to Pennsylvania or something.)

My choice of words could have been better. It should be stored on the lid - this minimizes evaporation :)

I did that once with salad dressing. You can't image how much salad dressing in your eyes hurts! :cry:

I have an Arizona swamp cooler tip:

I was having minor flaking problems when I started using the swamp cooler this year.

For some reason I tried to put my release in the fridge. It dries slower, but all my flaking problems are gone. My "smooth and tuff" is now in the fridge full time.

anybody else in AZ? what are these horrible teensy weensy meensy little black bugs that bite like hell??? anything that will make them quit? skeeter repellent doesn't work. they showed up with the rain.

No help with the little bugs, but we've got beetles and <eeeek!> maybe cockroaches since the rains started.

Anyway....Robin, is distilled water okay to use for thinning? I keep a bottle for my iron so it's pretty handy.

We have beetles, too, and the toads gobble them as fast as they can. I love the toads!

Someone has to know how to battle the nasty little black bugs, they hurt, and usually bite you when you have a HUGE ball of molten glass on your mandrel...

Ah... me too. Here I was thinking I was the only person on the planet that could make any bead release she got her hands on do strange things.

I can't remember where I read it but I think someone mixed super blue sludge with Foster Fire regular. I'm not game enough to try it, if someone has can you tell me how it works out for you?

Robin. Sorry if I sounded "short"...I just hate when I lose a 'potentially' good bead before it's time. I mixed the new bottle with some other odds and ends of other bead releases I had laying around, added some unsoftened water (different well - no softener) stirred and shook it like crazy, and viola....lots of pretty good bead release. Can you tell me why a bead, will "release" and start to spin on a mandrell (usually when I am making tiny beads)? I am sure this is something I am doing wrong.....

Distilled water is fine.

I am in AZ too. No black bugs but a bumper crop of scorpions right after the last storm, in both house and studio. I am putting out glue mouse traps to catch the nasty things. Home Depot has cheapest price of $2.45 for 4 of them.

"spinners" are beads that come loose when you are working on them. These are usually caused by not having the glass hot enough and then tugging. You need the glass at a nice glow and then lay it on the bead release as you turn the mandrel away from you.

I am *never* moving to AZ. I take back anything I ever said about being jealous of the Tuscon shows--you're frightening me with the "creature" stories. Our biting bugs respond to standard bug spray up here in Maine!

(I'll visit for the bead shows...someday....maybe....I hope!!)

Well, scorpions don't bite, they sting with their tails. On the good side you almost never see them in Dec-Mar timeframe, so you're safe for the Tucson shows.

Back to bead release for a sec - SKINNY DIPPING
FosterFire, all formulas, likes to be dipped skinny, not too thick. To dip skinny: mandrel down into the jar and then remove slowly. Thicker works fine for most things, but the cracking thing can be eliminated by skinny dipping.

Also, I have pressed as many as 8 times without cracking the new Smooth & Tiff release BUT since I have hand problems sometimes I bump the edge of the brass and lose the bead release on either side of the bead, but I keep working, and I have always had them come off easily after they are out of the kiln.

One other thing - if you use a graphite bead release such as Sludge then thick or double dipping may be just fine.

*bing* This is the first thing I am going to do when I get home. I think I have the same problem. I haven't had much studio time this summer and my new jar of bead release is not coating the mandrels correctly.

I used to get "spinners" and usually with stiffer glasses and smaller beads. Disks are famous for spinning. I still get a spinner or two making disks, I am too rough with the marvering and don't get my glass hot enough.

If you get a spinner toward the end of your bead, put a very small ring of glass on either side of the bead about 1/4" away to prevent it from sliding off the mandrel onto your table or into your hand.

I have also had some spinners that left enough release on the side of the bead to actually put some glass on the release that was loose and stick it to either the mandrel or the release that wasn't loose on the mandrel. Occasionally you can anchor them down again. The little bit of glass used as an anchor stuck to your mandrel is no big deal. It will pop off, if not by hand, just poke it in the flame and shock it off.

Does it make a difference if you air dry or flame dry for spinners? I only air dry, but if flame drying will help my disks, I will try it.

Back to the bugs:

Scorpions sting, but the sting is less than a bee sting. I have been stung numerous times because I refuse to wear shoes on a regular basis, and I do a lot of pruning in my flowers without gloves.

They eat other nasty bugs and frankly, they are good. My scorpions are BIG, so ideally you can see them coming, unlike those nasty little spiders you get in your woodpiles in Maine, and those bites make you sick and your skin rots off, ick!!! Aren't they called Wolf Spiders or something like that? They scare me.

Glue traps! What a great idea! I don't want to kill the ones outside, and I have only ever had one inside, but I think I will set a glue trap or two anyway. Lots of scorpions this season here, too.

I live in the country, so maybe the little black bugs are only in my area. I live almost on the border about 30 miles north of Lukeville and Sonoyta. One great thing about the bugs here, if you don't like them, wait a couple months, you will get a whole new batch of different bugs. Most bugs only last a few months, very seasonable little guys.

I think that I get more spinners with flame dry, so I always air dry.

Anyone able to explain the bubbling that happens in glass with some bead releases?

I never flame dry - it just doesn't seem to work as well for me, but I have found that my fosterfire dries in an hour or so in the air conditioning.