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Boro Room -- For Boro-related tips, techniques, and questions.

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  #1  
Old 2012-06-23, 10:58am
silverlilly1 silverlilly1 is offline
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Default My First Boro Work - Failures and Successes - HELP!

Hi everyone!

I tried boro for the first time last night, and let me say, it didn't go that well... I would love some advice to make this better. I'm working on an 8 LPM OxyCon and propane.

My first beads - Momka Silver Iris
I'm guessing this is a glass that needs to go over top of a dark colour to make it look good. I think I got this one to react well, but it's blah on its own.


Momka Aurora Borealis
I tried my darndest to get this white hot, but just couldn't. Striking it without getting it white hot first got me this. I'm assuming I just don't have enough oxygen, and that I should just use this as a dark blue base for the Silver Iris.


GA Dragons Eye
It looks like from the instructions that it is meant to be used over transparent green. On its own, I got some reaction, but it's not that exciting. I didn't like it, so I encased it. Didn't help.


GA Amazon Bronze
I have two rods of this - a greenish rod and a tan rod. They both spark and pit very easily, even if the glass isn't heated up yet. The two outer beads are from the green rod - I like how they turned out. The middle bead is from the tan rod - it's pretty lousy, and wouldn't even reduce to the oil slick I got on the others.


I also have a lousy TAG Mega Mai Tai bead that I posted in the Mai Tai thread.

Any suggestions?
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Last edited by silverlilly1; 2012-06-23 at 1:09pm.
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  #2  
Old 2012-06-23, 11:20am
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Dragonharper Dragonharper is offline
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I'm still a noob at boro but, I do know that boro needs lots of oxy. When in doubt add more oxy or the colors will reduce. Mai Tai is in the Amber Purple family, work it screaming hot, remove from the flame alow to cool until no glow then introduce to the back of an oxidizing flame until it just starts to glow. Rinse and repeat until until you like it. Also I understand that Mai Tai likes to be kiln struck, more so than regular A. P.

Just my $0.02 but it may help.

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  #3  
Old 2012-06-23, 1:52pm
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MagpieGlass MagpieGlass is offline
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Melissa ... you are being way too hard on yourself. The first pair ... Momka Silver Iris have gorgeous wispies in them ... they just look to me like they have reduction haze over top.

I'm just starting to have some limited success with Momka Aurora Borealis. I mixed it with fumed clear and really like the result ... I just sold a set in my etsy that was made that way.

I'm no help with any of the other colors because I haven't really played with them either. I'm pretty limited in my boro experience. I've had my torch about 3.5 years and have been boroing for about 3 but mostly implosion pendants.

I'm with Roy in that more oxy is always better with boro. If you can't get the glass screaming hot with your oxycon then you need more oxy.

The suggestion to work in some reduction on the Mai Tai I believe was specifically for Mai Tai Pink. If I remember with Mega Mai Tai that gets you beige/caramel wisps.

I have a GTT Bobcat torch on a M15 oxycon ... but I regularly switch to tanked 02 for boro play days. Not to say I can't or won't work from the oxycon. I can make smallish beads and pendants that way but if I really want to cook and to speed things up ... the tank is my preferred set-up.
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Old 2012-06-23, 2:45pm
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Three Muses Glass Three Muses Glass is offline
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Your Amazon Bronze looks good to me. I pretty much only like it by itself on the surface if it's thin like disk beads or blown work like vessels. A solid bead won't get the same reduction that I loooove.

Some (a lot) of boro colors are very dense. You might try layering them over clear to see how you like it.
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Old 2012-06-24, 8:54am
LarryC LarryC is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MagpieGlass View Post
I have a GTT Bobcat torch on a M15 oxycon ... but I regularly switch to tanked 02 for boro play days. Not to say I can't or won't work from the oxycon. I can make smallish beads and pendants that way but if I really want to cook and to speed things up ... the tank is my preferred set-up.
This is great advice at least until you get some experience and learn the materials. Working Boro is a lot different than soft glass and there is a learning curve. As you progress into the opaque colors like whites they will want to boil if your work them too fast.
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Old 2012-06-24, 12:11pm
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Dragonharper Dragonharper is offline
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I thought soft glass was a finesse game, it's got nothing on Boro. Don't rush it, remember glass does what it want's to, you are trying to convince it to go where you want.

"Patience Grasshopper."
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Old 2012-06-24, 1:24pm
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Try this...put the rod into the flame and heat it until you see what looks like a veil coming off to reveal a clearer transparent inside...then start at this point to wind on the mandrel.
Most look best encased...good luck!
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Old 2012-06-24, 2:28pm
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PittsGlass PittsGlass is offline
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Great advise in this thread. I like to burn Amazon Bronze to death in the flame and sometimes get wonderful purples out of it. Hotter, and lots of oxygen is your friend.
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Old 2012-06-24, 3:13pm
LarryC LarryC is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catsarthouse View Post
Try this...put the rod into the flame and heat it until you see what looks like a veil coming off to reveal a clearer transparent inside...then start at this point to wind on the mandrel.
Most look best encased...good luck!
May not be able to generate enough heat over a wide enough area with the small torch and concentrator she has to achieve bright clean color with boro.
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  #10  
Old 2012-06-24, 7:32pm
silverlilly1 silverlilly1 is offline
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These comments are all good. I'll try what I can with the equipment I have, but no new equipment, so these other suggestions are good to at least try.
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Old 2012-06-24, 8:15pm
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Try taking any glass with silver in it, make small bead, roll in large clear frit, melt in and encase in clear.

Make a stringer out of multiple colors, make bead out of mulitcolored twistie and encase in clear.

You're on the right track and your beads look nice, it's not easy. Lot's of trial and error.

Brent Graber's DVDs are great and helped teach me about colors.

Best wishes, may the boro Gods shine on you!
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  #12  
Old 2012-06-29, 9:37am
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I love those Amazon Bronze beads! AB is one of those very special glasses that if handled correctly can create gorgeousness, and if not can be really boring. I'm not sure you can get bronze out of Amazon Bronze, if that's what you were looking for. Boro names are sometimes a little fanciful -- Dragon's Eye, anyone? -- though if someone can tell me I'm wrong, that's good too! Everything I say comes from my experience, and there are lots of people better than me. The sparking and pitting is because it has silver wire (I'm almost 100% sure that's silver. Some kind of wire, anyway...) in it. Those "pits" you see aren't really pits, they're cooled molten silver. I always use silver polish on AB pieces to brighten up the silver bits, and if you have some kind of rotary polisher AB would probably benefit from that too. I THINK AB is a red-based color, and I've never been able to get the reds and pinks you have here, so I'm pretty impressed. Actually, the redness of the color makes me think you might have a variant of AB called Lauri's Bronze, which can give you more pinkish colors. Polish up those beads with silver polish and use a rotary polisher on the silver spots and see whether that makes you like them better.

The Silver Iris just needs to have the haze burned off the outside. If you want to play with them, pre-heat them in your kiln, punty up, and burn off the haze. Then see what happens when you try to strike it without the haze. You might like that better.

You're doing well! With boro, it's often difficult to get what you think you're going to get until you have thousands of hours of practice. Or that's my excuse, anyway! Keep going -- and maybe you want to keep a notebook so when things turn out really well you'll know what you did. And I'm serious about those AB beads -- they're gorgeous!

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