Encasing Question, yes another

[2tumblingdragonz]

When you encase, with clear, do you let the clear melt in on it's own or do you heat and marver to smooth and help it along.

I'm looking for different people's ways of doing this.

I have Mary Lockwood's awesome encasing tutorial but I'm still having a rough go of it on the HH, esp not heating up the entire bead trying to melt down the clear.

I have not tried stringers in a while because I seem to get lines where my clear is too thin or I missed a spot.

TIA

namaste
Rowyn

[jamie lynne]

I use both. When I'm working with picky glass, namely reduction glass, I heat a bit and marver, heat and marver until I get really close to the shape I want then I let it get a little hotter for final shaping, since most of my beads are just rounds.

REgular glass I just heat it in and go.

[essiemessy]

Depends what's underneath the clear. It's too easy to end up heating the whole bead (on a HH), and it's very easy to distort what you're encasing.
Best results for me have come from using a really melty clear, so that I can just let it all melt nicely, once I've applied the encasing. If I get too impatient, and start 'helping' things along, I get a mess instead.
On the other hand, once I get my surface-mix torch set up, I fully expect to have to do things differently. But I also hope to be able to use the cheaper clears again

[2tumblingdragonz]

Thank you--what is the meltiest clear? I have a rod that someone must have sent me. It melts like butter, easier than zephyr. I really mean like butter. and it's a really ugly rod-if I hold it up to the light it looks like it has ripples in it and even maybe a line but it's beautifully clear and just the easiest thing to work with.

T minus 1 rod and counting lol

namaste
Rowyn

[essiemessy]

Ooh I'd like to know, too
I use Zephyr, and I also have some old Lauscha, which I'm still testing. Some rods are beautifully soft and easy to use, and crystal clear, but others - surprisingly the thinner ones - are all devit and soot. Your guess is as good as mine!!!

[purpledragonfly]

I really like the Lauscha Soft (the new lauscha) for encasing. I don't encase a lot, I had gotten so discouraged with it, but I tried with the Lauscha Soft and it was so much easier. It melts like butter and is really clear.

[glassactcc]

I let it melt in without touching it. I marver very little when I make beads. As little as possible. It usually mucks things up more then helps. I wait until the bead is very hot and smooth on the surface and then one or two rotations on a marver to shape. I do use Osibin shaping marvers usually though. If your using a flat marver, you might have to marver a bit more to get the shape you are trying to achieve.

[essiemessy]

Ditto, Autumn. If I use the thicker rods, it loves the HH just as much as the Zephyr. Not so much on big encased florals - goes a tiny bit smoky-coloured, but on small lentils, it's gorgeous.
I'm also coming to terms with Corrina's shaper, which does help very much once it's all melted in, rather than marvering.