CIM Gellys Sty - Page 3

echeveria · #61 2024-02-28, 3:20pm

Olympic is the biggest distributor of lampwork cane. East Bay does not sell cane, just frit and rods (the big kilo furnace rods) There may be smaller sellers around, but I am not aware of them. There are a couple in Canada, but their selection is limited.

echeveria · #62 2024-02-28, 3:23pm

And RL6209 is Multicolor. My rods look NOTHING like that. It is a striking color like many of the Double Helix strikers. Tan in the rod, strikes to green/purple/blue/magenta if you are lucky as hell and then when you put it in the kiln it reverts to tan. Ugh. But I have seen people that are better than me at striking the amber purples get some beautiful tones from it.

jesnbec73 · #63 2024-02-29, 5:37am

One of the Devardi pinks I got turned out some really beautiful minis, very similar to the ones I posted earlier that turn from a pinkish-purple haze to gold in sunlight. I made a couple hundred or so and got to a spot in the rod that must have had an air bubble in it... ugh.
I actually talked to the Devardi guy, he seemed super nice and he's aware of the reputation they have. I was telling him that this would be a great opportunity for them to do something like a re-launch and start making some quality glass and he actually seemed to take it to heart and said he would put some serious thought into going with another manufacturer. If he were to follow through with that they could really make their mark right now. We should get him and that Zhou Defei guy together before he changes his mind!

jesnbec73 · #64 2024-03-22, 3:31am

Might have just gotten some really good news guys, got a response last evening to my email to CIM, I won't include the whole email, but here's an excerpt...

"I think it is likely that we will melt Gelly's Sty sometime this year. I'll add you to our enewsletter list so that you will get notification when that happens and it is back in stock.
Thanks so much for creating with CiM!"

Signs of life from CIM, I was tickled to hear it.

echeveria · #65 2024-03-22, 8:47am

Sounds promising!

SGA · #66 2024-03-22, 12:53pm

Kathy has always been transparent. I am 100% convinced if she was closing the doors, we’d know. She also indicated she was shifting CIM to part time. So naturally, she’d have less production this year.

That’s to say, CIM is alive. I don’t think we need to look for signs. Or encourage her partner to form a relationship with her competitor. She supports the lampwork industry in ways that we don’t have anywhere else in the world. If we ask for a true brown, eventually we get a seasonal release of many brown tones as they experiment with the color. No other international manufacturer does that. No other manufacturer sends out test samples to peers with different working styles and promotes their discoveries, for better or worse.

I am glad to hear some favorites are pencilled in to remelt. But calling her letter suicidal and suggesting Zhou jump ship is, frankly, a little offensive for all that she’s done for our community.

KJohn · #67 2024-03-22, 4:38pm

Well I don't know that's fair to put that on someone who doesn't know her. That announcement did not sound very promising, so the news he has shared is VERY encouraging!

Lauscha has done a few new melts, recently. I hope we see some more from them too!

jesnbec73 · #68 2024-03-23, 7:04am

Quote:

Originally Posted by SGA

Kathy has always been transparent. I am 100% convinced if she was closing the doors, we’d know. She also indicated she was shifting CIM to part time. So naturally, she’d have less production this year.

That’s to say, CIM is alive. I don’t think we need to look for signs. Or encourage her partner to form a relationship with her competitor. She supports the lampwork industry in ways that we don’t have anywhere else in the world. If we ask for a true brown, eventually we get a seasonal release of many brown tones as they experiment with the color. No other international manufacturer does that. No other manufacturer sends out test samples to peers with different working styles and promotes their discoveries, for better or worse.

I am glad to hear some favorites are pencilled in to remelt. But calling her letter suicidal and suggesting Zhou jump ship is, frankly, a little offensive for all that she’s done for our community.

I think if you will read my post, I used the word 'like', as in 'like a suicide letter'. That is a part of speech we used to call a simile, words such as 'like' or 'as' which are used to make comparisons and therefore avoid any literal interpretations. I don't know if that is something that is still taught or not, but generally speaking, when you see the word 'like' or 'as' used like that in a sentence, it is making a comparison and not meant to be taken literally.

As far as encouraging anyone to jump ship, when I wrote that post, I was under the impression that CIM was shutting down for good. So unless that ship was the Titanic or the Edmond Fitzgerald, I assumed this brilliant chemist was no longer making ANY glass, and halfheartedly suggested we should hook the guy up with another glass gig. I was just about to apologize for what I said, but then it occurred to me that I am not responsible for other people's feelings or their interpretations, be they correct or otherwise. But I will leave you with this 'food for thought'...

In a fairly recent interview John Cleese, of Monty Python fame, said something about modern dialogue with other people that I thought was pretty profound, which I will paraphrase roughly... 'There are people who go around looking for the thrill of being offended.'

echeveria · #69 2024-03-23, 1:06pm

Zhou has other employment. CIM was a side effort for him.

jesnbec73 · #70 2024-07-29, 6:55pm

Anybody know what glass this is?
https://i.etsystatic.com/10590605/r/...13785_g0y3.jpg
It's a Czech Bead according to the listing, aren't familiar with it but a lot of the Czech Glass was 104 or higher. Anyways, it's an awesome pink, would love to know what it is though.

KJohn · #71 2024-07-29, 7:16pm

That's a beautiful pink. Look like pressed beads so that could be anything...I could be wrong though. Preciousa (Czech glass) has a website somewhere. Might not be able to order from it unless you're a dealer but might be able to find the color.

And speaking of color, anyone heard anything else about Ed Hoy & Zhou partnership?

jesnbec73 · #72 2024-07-29, 7:23pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by KJohn

That's a beautiful pink. Look like pressed beads so that could be anything...I could be wrong though. Preciousa (Czech glass) has a website somewhere. Might not be able to order from it unless you're a dealer but might be able to find the color.

And speaking of color, anyone heard anything else about Ed Hoy & Zhou partnership?

Yeah, I saw that and was blown away by it. Czech glass is so funky, I recently bought about ten pounds of some vaseline rods that were 104, the guy literally found them in a warehouse there and they had been sitting there since the early 1920's. The Czech Republic could have been the next Murano, probably still could. If they were making pinks like that though, just wow.

danieljanse · #73 2024-07-30, 8:13am

I wish I understood Czech glass makers. I agree that they make incredible colors but they don't care about compatibility. If you look at the data sheet from Preciousa it shows a range of COEs well above and below 104...why?

Who wants to buy a selection of color, spend hours making product and have them crack in the annealer, or worse, while in the possession of a customer?

Pick a COE and test against it with the discipline of Bullseye. That is the recipe to making glass color that can expand into a global market.

kevingreenbmx · #74 2024-07-30, 9:28am

Quote:

Originally Posted by danieljanse

I wish I understood Czech glass makers. I agree that they make incredible colors but they don't care about compatibility. If you look at the data sheet from Preciousa it shows a range of COEs well above and below 104...why?

Who wants to buy a selection of color, spend hours making product and have them crack in the annealer, or worse, while in the possession of a customer?

Pick a COE and test against it with the discipline of Bullseye. That is the recipe to making glass color that can expand into a global market.

They make glass for factories cranking out monolithic works, compatibility doesn't matter if the object is all one glass.

It's also worth noting that Bullseye doesn't provide COE data. Their measured COEs range quite a bit. They figured out that the viscosity curve was as important or even more important for compatibility than COE in kiln work applications.

echeveria · #75 2024-07-30, 1:09pm

Most glass suppliers view it as the artists' responsibility to test combinations they want to use. COE is only part of the equation.

danieljanse · #76 2024-07-30, 1:44pm

Hi Kevin, What kind of monolithic glassworks? I'm trying to think of something monolithic that I've ever seen in glass. Especially colored glass. LOL
There are some pretty big cast pieces at Corning but nothing cranked out at a factory.

I understand there are many different Czech glass makers but I was looking questioningly at Preciosa. They sell lampwork rod for beadmakers and they report several different COEs within their color range (opal, transparent, etc). They supply this confusing chart (see below) of calculated COEs but never state which of their colors can be used together. Is it just anyone's guess?

I think when you mentioned BE that you are also talking about calculated COE...no one really measures "COE". Bullseye was smart and said early on that all their glass was going to fit itself. They run the Chip Test on everything; detecting stress using a polariscope in their medium: fused glass. They chose their own number at "90" and I don't know the history of that.

Viscosity can be derived from the same calculators that measure expansion. I have one that measures it but I can't tell what it means. Very different glass formulas have given me similar values. I'd be interested in knowing what BE looks for in viscosity. I also really wish they has chosen 104. LOL

echeveria · #77 2024-07-30, 1:55pm

Czech makes a lot of beads. Single colored seed beads. Lots. And then some other small specialty pressed beads of various shapes, and usually all one color, some iridized. I don't know if that is what Kevin is referring to, but seed beads immediately come to mind when I hear Czech glass.

kevingreenbmx · #78 2024-07-31, 6:45am

Daniel, bullseye specifically rejects the claim that their glass is 90COE. And COE absolutely can be, and is, measured using a tool called a dilatometer. There are several furnace glass chemists that have them and test all their formulas with them (pretty common discussion on Craftweb). However, it is very much not the case that COE matching is sufficient to ensure compatibility, and in fact when Bullseye glass is measured, their glasses vary in COE widely, by as much as ±6*10^-5 K^-1.

Viscosity is harder to measure, but that is ultimately part of what the bullseye chip test is testing. The chip test, a hagey/trident seal test, and a layered ring test are really the gold standards for full-picture compatibility testing.

When I mentioned "monolithic" pieces, I did in fact mean single-color like beads and buttons, or many of the older American factory glass vessels and pressed items that were made from a single glass, so did not need to be compatible with other glass bodies.

jesnbec73 · #79 2024-07-31, 8:20am

I talked to the seller of those Czech beads, turns out she is Cat Burns' cousin which is pretty cool. She said the pink is an enamel applied to a white base, so unfortunately no awesome source of pink glass hidden away in the Carpathian mountains. I had no idea that COE was such a dynamic thing, good lord.

danieljanse · #80 2024-07-31, 9:41am

Hi Kevin, First off, let's please agree not to have a Craftweb style escalation about something as dry as COE. For one thing, if you even mention "COE" on Craftweb you will be shot down before you can get a word edgewise. The proper term is, apparently. "LEC" or linear expansion. Pete knows all. LOL

Don't confuse a dilatometer for a polarimeter. It would seem like a dilatometer would be a polariscope with a dial! But it's not...that is a polarimeter. Many, if not most, furnace chemists use a polarimeter (i.e. Strainoptics) but only researchers use dilatometers. I have a polarimeter and use it every time I melt my glass. I measure against Effetre clear to my clear and colors.

And a polarimeter is actually more than a polariscope with a dial. LOL It has 2 sets of plane polarized filters, the lighted stage and the rotating half wave lens. They should not cost what they do, but what does???

An old discussion on Craftweb (https://talk.craftweb.com/showthread.php?t=3744) yielded this amazing set of pics on how a polarimeter works. It can seem like such a mystery but the Trident Seal test makes it a breeze. Two capillary-thick "test" pieces of glass are used to sandwich your clear shaped in the same way (it only works when testing against clear). To do this the ends are simply torched and the whole thing annealed. The seals are then placed on the lighted stage vertically as shown. If there is no stress, the clear center remains dark when the dial is at zero. With stress, the center lights up but the beauty of the polarimeter and this test is that you can rotate the dial CW or CCW until the center is dark. I have found that I need to be well within one point on the dial to be compatible. The dial does not measure COE but I believe there may be a way to convert the values to PSI as Jed @ DH did when analyzing a bunch of commercial glasses.

This post was used to show that (many years ago) a Chinese glass company (Pi glass) was selling color that was ridiculously out of compatibility. I believe the tests were performed by techs at Gaffer Glass and the owner John Croucher actually walked viewers through the process. Gaffer used to offer to read your Trident seals if you sent them to them. Now you know why that was not such a burden!

You are correct that a dilatometer measures COE (oops, I said it!), but that won't tell you if your clear glass matches your blue glass. Also a dilatometer requires sophisticated instrumentation that can measure the subtle linear growth/retraction of glass under various temperatures (dilation?). No furnace glass maker has one. BE doesn't have one.

I've also never seen BE shy away from saying their glass is 90. Why would they? It's a great way of distinguishing their glass from the other varieties and through their extensive testing, they may be the only company who can truly stand behind their compatibility.

Quote:

in fact when Bullseye glass is measured, their glasses vary in COE widely, by as much as ±6*10^-5 K^-1.

Again, calculated not measured. No one actually measures COE.

When you see how simple the Trident Seal test is to establish it just makes me further question the decisions of Czech glass makers, and Devardi for that matter, to treat compatibility within their own glass lines as such an afterthought.

danieljanse · #81 2024-07-31, 9:44am

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesnbec73

I talked to the seller of those Czech beads, turns out she is Cat Burns' cousin which is pretty cool. She said the pink is an enamel applied to a white base, so unfortunately no awesome source of pink glass hidden away in the Carpathian mountains. I had no idea that COE was such a dynamic thing, good lord.

Is this the Cat Burns from Blown Away? She is amazing! Every time I hear her name I think about her eye condition and wonder how she is doing.

KJohn · #82 2024-07-31, 2:25pm

wow this is interesting! And enamel, who knew. They got great color with that, and certainly more easily available. I buy the big sample sets direct from Thompson, 2 oz jars.

jesnbec73 · #83 2024-07-31, 6:34pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by danieljanse

Is this the Cat Burns from Blown Away? She is amazing! Every time I hear her name I think about her eye condition and wonder how she is doing.

It is, her cousin at least who is also a glass artist apparently. I don't watch any television so the only episodes of Blown Away I was able to catch were you youtube etc., but I made a point to watch her stuff after hearing the name a couple times. Watching glass blowing always makes me feel like... like a lampworker LOL I've pulled a couple points and made a pipe or two in my day but I'd love to do some furnace work someday before I get too old to do it anymore.

jesnbec73 · #84 2024-07-31, 6:39pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by KJohn

wow this is interesting! And enamel, who knew. They got great color with that, and certainly more easily available. I buy the big sample sets direct from Thompson, 2 oz jars.

Yeah, that pink blew me away, and I just knew there was a stack of some awesome dank pink glass hiding in a warehouse in the Czech Republic just waiting to be uncovered.. damn. I don't have any experience with enamels whatsoever but I'd imagine at 2mm in diameter, it's not going to show up well but I'm going to have to try it and see what happens now for sure. I sure do miss that Gellys though, whatever the recipe is for it, it's certainly unique and IME, unequaled.

jesnbec73 · #85 2024-07-31, 6:45pm

I was going to register on Craftweb but they say they don't take any Gmail or Yahoo email addresses to register, hell, that's all I have and have used for nearly thirty years now is my yahoo mail and I think I have a gmail for a tablet someone gave me a while back.

kevingreenbmx · #86 2024-08-01, 10:57am

I assure you, I was not confusing a dilatometer with a polariscope or polarimeter.

You are incorrect that no furnace glass maker have dilatometers. I know of at least three that do, and they will sometimes measure glass samples for other who ask them nicely.

polarimeters do not measure COE, they measure strain. Strain from a polarimeter cannot be used to calculate COE, except as an average over the range between room temperature and strain point, when compared against a known/measured COE reference glass.

As to Bullseye COE, see their top FAQ question: https://www.bullseyeglass.com/faq/

kevingreenbmx · #87 2024-08-01, 10:58am

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesnbec73

I was going to register on Craftweb but they say they don't take any Gmail or Yahoo email addresses to register, hell, that's all I have and have used for nearly thirty years now is my yahoo mail and I think I have a gmail for a tablet someone gave me a while back.

Pete supposedly removed the prohibition on using gmail/hotmail/yahoo/webmail email addresses, you should be able to register now.

jesnbec73 · #88 2024-08-02, 8:14pm

I reckon the formula for Gellys Sty is proprietary but I wonder if we could pool some resources or get a fund raiser going somehow and get CIM to cook us up a batch of it. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of producing glass rod/cane but I'm sure a stack of money is one of the preliminary ingredients. I'm not wealthy, but I'd be willing to donate some if the end result was rods in hand. Surely it's not uncommon to commission a batch of color, anybody know what kind of money that runs into? Pure speculation, but I'm curious... If I were a rich man, how much would it cost to get a batch of a particular color like Gellys made, and how much glass is in a typical run?

danieljanse · #89 2024-08-03, 8:30am

Was it relatively expensive to begin with? Pink suggests a gold ruby, but this is relatively light pink. Erbium can be used to make a light pink which isn't cheap but isn't $$$ like gold either! I don't know how dark it can get. I imagine those cheaper, pink-tinted rods are erbium, not gold.

This is weird but in my limited chats with Kathy, she asked if I had a recipe for a raspberry opal as Zhou was looking for one. Raspberry sounds a little darker than Gelly, like the beads in your OP. But if I had Gelly Sty as a recipe, I would just start there and try to get it more intense.

I don't make opaques because the recipes include high fluoride which vents off as a poisonous gas AND will eat my refractory. I have heard it will etch the glass in your studio like HF acid can do! I guess this is why DH makes phosphate opals but not fluoride ones. If you were happy with a phosphate opal gold ruby, I'll bet DH could make a beauty! Just indicate that you want something faster striking than the Opal Violet they make or it won't look very "opal".

Could be that Gold Ruby is not compatible with a phosphate opal. But I have made a Copper Ruby phosphate opal which requires similar conditions from what I have read. It takes some guts to throw gold into an unknow situation. A "Go Fund Me" opportunity for DH seems like a good idea.

rainygrrl · #90 2024-08-10, 9:32pm

Oh my! This chemistry is way over my head. I think that Gelly’s sty has always cost more than average, which is normal for pinks. But in my limited use, it’s been lovely and stable. I also have Reich raspberry opal, which in my hands is always a bit muddy (?) or at least not a pure pink. Probably just something about how I’ve mishandled it. My favorite is ASK passionate pink, which is virtually unavailable. Sigh.

I love your enthusiasm, JR and Daniel, but I don’t think it’s likely that enough money could be raised to fund the manufacturing of a batch of glass, which also might not turn out as intended. High risk, I would think. But that’s just my guess. I have no clue as to the cost of making glass. Interesting question.