Striking Boro Beads
the Doug Remschneider Way

boro beads

Kilning: garaged 950 dF, ramped 1150 dF 3hrs, ramped down 1050 ~ 45min?; advanced kiln to ramp-down schedule; shut off at 720dF

I attempted to start the striking process in the flame before putting them in the kiln to continue striking them.

The most interesting thing is that how dilute the warm yellow was had little to do with dark it struck—the darkest bead (on the right) was on the end of a rod with some clear on the tip from the pull. Effectively the bead is a clear core, with a couple of winds of dilute warm yellow and then clear cased—yet it struck the darkest; that is, how dark the beads struck had more to do with how well they were started in the flame.

Other comments: the rods looked very similar, but the unstruck beads (the burnt off mandrels provide good examples:) are somewhat different—the modern GA warm yellow is lighter than the older glass, which my best guess is several year old sample-pack NS 09 yellow.

photos ? file created 23nov08