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Tips, Techniques, and Questions -- Technical questions or tips

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  #1  
Old 2017-01-12, 6:56pm
loulouvmd loulouvmd is offline
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Default Encasement Help???

I think I posted this in the wrong spot so I am posting it here with hope of finding an answer. I am about to pull my hair out trying to figure out what I am doing wrong. I recently purchase a tutorial. Basically teaching you to use different frit and dipping the tip of the clear in the frit and making a small base bead then encasing it. Problem is I am having issues with beads cracking after they come out of the Kiln. Coe 96 frit, the clear I use 2 different ones having the same issues with both Super Clear and Zephyr???
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  #2  
Old 2017-01-12, 7:39pm
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Do you have a photo?
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  #3  
Old 2017-01-13, 1:25am
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You will want to keep the ratio of 96 type glass to Zephyr to around 5 % or 10 %.

Zephyr is a 104 type glass and it will cool and contract at a different rate than the 96 type glass.
That difference will cause enormous stress at the junction where the two types contact each other and if they don't crack as they are cooling in the kiln they can actually kind of explode days, months or years later with no real warning.

I suggest starting with just one type of glass and adding the very smallest amount of frit you can for your first dozen beads and then increase the amount of frit until the cracking starts up again.

Another thought is to not over work the glass in the flame too much. It's neat playing the glass in its molten state but the yellow flare that gets filtered out with the didymium glasses is called a soda flare because it is sodium that is getting burned out of the glass and that is changing the composition of the glass as its burned off.


My third thought is that there was several discussion threads on here a few years back about some varieties of clear that turned out to not be compatible with itself meaning that just heating it up to shape it and then annealing it would cause it to crack without any other glass or frit added.

I don't remember if Super Clear was one of them or not.
I think there was something called Arrow Springs Kuggler (ASK) clear that had a problem like that but I could be mistaken.

Perhaps doing some searches with the words "clear cracking" in quotation marks can locate those discussions for you. You will want to use the quotation marks so the search engine will give you threads that contain both words or else you will wind up with results containing every thread with the word clear and every thread containing the word cracking.
That would be a list of almost every thing on the forum. this question in as well.

ETA: I copied my answer here from your other post with this question in the tutorial section.
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Last edited by Speedslug; 2017-01-13 at 1:27am.
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  #4  
Old 2017-01-13, 5:52am
loulouvmd loulouvmd is offline
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Oh thank you!! That is a big help!! I am going to do some more test beads with this information and see how they turn out.
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  #5  
Old 2017-01-13, 7:20am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Speedslug View Post
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I don't remember if Super Clear was one of them or not.
I think there was something called Arrow Springs Kuggler (ASK) clear that had a problem like that but I could be mistaken.
Just wanted to mention that I have used ASK clear for years with no cracking issues at all but it's possible it varies from batch to batch.
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  #6  
Old 2017-01-13, 11:24am
loulouvmd loulouvmd is offline
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I don't think it is the clear because I can encase a normal bead. Just seems to be when I use the frit. I did 4 this morning and used very little frit. Will see what happens.
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Old 2017-01-13, 2:47pm
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Also, if you are using the frit on the very inside of the bead, maybe put down a clear core, then the light frit layer, then encase? I am just guessing here, I don't use frit much.
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  #8  
Old 2017-01-13, 3:51pm
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Get some 96 COE clear if you are only using clear and frit. You can get it from Olympic Color Rods or Howaco.
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  #9  
Old 2017-01-13, 4:39pm
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I used to make encased floral beads with mixed 96 and 104 COE. For example, I'd layer a little 96 ruby over a 104 ruby gold, then stretch it into a stringer, then use dots of that stringer over white dots to make the standard encased flowers like Corina Tettinger teaches, so it wasn't even a full dot of 96, but a mixture. All but a few survived, and lots of people had posted that it was ok to mix in small quantities, and I was using exceedingly small quantities, so I thought it was fine. I found a box of about 20 beads made with that mixture about 7 years later, and all but one had cracked.

I'll don't think I'd trust 96 mixed with 104, in any quantities, again.

Last edited by dusty; 2017-01-14 at 4:41am.
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  #10  
Old 2017-01-13, 6:02pm
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Same here Dusty. They make perfectly good colors in 96 that are compatible with each other. Why not just use those?
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  #11  
Old 2017-01-14, 4:08pm
loulouvmd loulouvmd is offline
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Yall have been so helpful. I am a self taught student so I just absorb information. I have never used 96 coe. Is the annealing process the same or would I need to change up the settings on my kiln?
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  #12  
Old 2017-01-14, 5:13pm
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Annealing is the same.
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  #13  
Old 2017-01-14, 5:27pm
loulouvmd loulouvmd is offline
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thank you Kathy !!
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  #14  
Old 2017-01-14, 5:52pm
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I have found that almost all the frit sold is 96 coe so you will have to try to limit the ratio to less than 10 percent when your glass rods are 104 coe.

You will find that transparent glass of the same coe is often much stiffer even when up to melting temperatures than most opaque glass.
White is notorious for being almost water runny when melted.

And some colors will actually sink into white and disappear on you.
In those cases you can build a core of some stiffer transparent and encase it in a thin layer of white then then put the sinking color on top of that to keep it from sinking in too far.


Using other colors inside as a base can give you a core of less expensive colors so you can stretch the more costly glass on to more beads without hiding so much of it on the inside where it will never get seen.
I do that with the striking silver colors that I "just had to have" even though they cost an arm and two legs.
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  #15  
Old 2017-01-14, 7:26pm
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Howaco sells 96 coe by the rod. The transparents are very saturated. I'd get a rod or two of clear, and maybe a couple of opaques to play with. 96 coe is just as easy to work as 104, and you can use 96 coe frit blends with reckless abandon.
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  #16  
Old 2017-01-14, 11:10pm
Shabrea Shabrea is offline
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Definitely invest in some 96 clear for that style bead. I use tons of frit and when doing this type of bead I only use 96 clear
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  #17  
Old 2017-01-16, 1:11pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PattyK View Post
Just wanted to mention that I have used ASK clear for years with no cracking issues at all but it's possible it varies from batch to batch.
It varied greatly from batch to batch.
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  #18  
Old 2017-01-16, 2:29pm
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Thanks Hayley - guess I have just been lucky!
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  #19  
Old 2017-01-16, 11:35pm
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Hi, I have made a lot of those types of beads, and most of the time, it depends on the frit. If it is a blend with lots of yellow, orange or red, or any combination of that, you may experience cracking. Sometimes, you may not heat them back up evenly as they go so fast, so make sure you are doing that.

Also, you could try a stable base, very small is okay, with something like white or clear. Make sure you hit up your mandrel with heat before winding the glass on.
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