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Originally Posted by SL Bead
Hi Dawn. I posted this somewhere else, but I know I am repeating it in this thread. I was revealing my horrible experience with Raku. I heated and heated my bead till I saw the bright white flame and some smoke on top of that. But then, the mandrel melted about 1/4" from the bead and the whole thing came down onto my desk top. Luckily it missed my lap. What a fiasco!! I was using Effetre black with dense black/Raku twisty design. My mandrel was 1/8". So I know I overheated it. It's going to take me a while before I learn the correct color of the flame. Also when you heat it that hot , you lose the shape of the bead and it's not easy to reestablish the nice ends. So I think the lesson for me is to back off a lot with heat. The color of the fallen bead looked just uggggg.... Back to square one for me!! Sachiko
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Oh my goodness! I've never heard of melting a mandrel! That was one hot little bead! I'm so glad you didn't get hurt.
Maybe I should rephrase what to look for. When you start heating your bead to melt in the frit or stringer, first you will see the bead glow orange, continue heating just a few seconds longer and the orange glow of the bead starts to turn a bright white orange. You can also see the raku frit or stringer start to spread out on the surface. At that point, take it out of the flame and let it cool just a tad and then gently marver it to chill the surface.
Don't give up on the raku though. Once you see those gorgeous colors, you'll be hooked!