Pandora Glass Beads

Here's a set of spacer beads I made with Double Helix Pandora glass:I haven't worked with Pandora in a long time. It was fun to break it out and play with it again. While the glass is hot it looks transparent green, but after spending 6 hours annealing at 950 F, then cooling down overnight, it develops the streaky purples and blues... if I'm lucky!

Part of this bead batch turned a muddy pale green. I tried making two beads on the mandrel to save kiln space, but that didn't work too well. While laying down the second bead, the first bead would cool and turn opaque light green. They went into the kiln with one bead being opaque and one being transparent. Only the transparent green beads, the second ones laid down, turned nice colors. The beads that went into the kiln opaque, stayed muddy. Lesson learned: Get the Pandora hot only once and pop it in the kiln, don't work this glass too much or let it get cool and hot again.

The Pandora bead set is in my Etsy shop, along with this new mixed metallic set using mainly Nyx and Kronos glass:
♥ ♥ ♥

In Like a Lion?

The lamb has already arrived here in Sedona! We're seeing the first much-anticipated signs of Spring. There are two pairs of Robins that hang out at our bird bath, daffodils and fruit trees are blooming in the yard, and the temperature this week has been around 70. Lovin' it!

I just sent my daughter off to New York City on a trip with her 8th grade class. She's part of the Montessori Model United Nations project, where kids act as Ambassadors from different countries and debate international policy with each other at the U.N. in New York. She's an Ambassador from Australia! How cool! New York is supposed to get a ton of snow tomorrow so that should be fun for them. Oh, yeah, snow is actually a fun event when you're from Arizona!

I have a few beads to show. Here's a set of Pandora and Triton beads:And a set of Triton "Leaves of Lothlorien":
Life's busy-ness has taken me away from blogging lately, but I'll be back more often this month with more metallic bead porn for you :-)

Pandora Spiral Disks

I've made a set of Pandora spiral disk beads. I made a few when I first got my Pandora, and finally I have finished a full set:These are in my Etsy shop right now.

Pandora is the only striking silver glass I've used that I can make nice looking disks with. Because it strikes in the kiln, I don't have to heat the spiral disk a lot to get the colors to appear like I do with other striking glasses. I've made some nice Terra spiral disks in the past, but they were a little too dark brown and the wonderful Terra colors didn't come through very well.

I love the scrumptious purple color of the Pandora disks. These two beads (below) on the mandrels are now part of the set pictured above. The colors look great in full sunlight. Quite a difference between this outdoor picture and the studio lighting!

Pandora and Triton

Re-visiting Pandora again, these beads are a base of pure Pandora with Triton scroll designs. I love the purples and magentas in these. I annealed some for 5 hours and some for 3... the 5-hour Pandora definitely got more color, but the 3-hour was nice, too. I'm still figuring out what works best in my kiln. The best way to see the color in these beads would be full sunlight, but here are a couple of studio-lit photos:

Pandora and Luna Sets

These two sets went into my Etsy shop today. The first one has a Triton base with Pandora swirled over the top, the second set is a base of ASK Silver Cinnamon with swirls of Luna:In the Pandora set, four of the beads annealed for 3 hours and the other four annealed for 10 hours. There isn't any color difference between the two batches. It's like they struck to a certain point and then stayed there. A mystery!

Musings on the Mysteries of Pandora

Fellow lampworker and blogger Sue shared her experience with Pandora in a comment on my last post. Thanks, Sue! Here's her comment:

"They turned out really dark, probably because they were in there for a while. I guess I have to use it last before I start the soak and ramp down. I put it over steel gray trans. and amber trans. and it turned out yuck! So, I guess plain or over opaque, and do them last instead of first...we'll see. Looks like you are the MASTER of pandora!!!!"

(I don't know about the "master of pandora" part! :-D )

I think the transparent amber is reacting with the Pandora to make that yucky color. Is that what you mean by yuck - they turned out dark-yuck? Like you said, try making plain Pandora beads or Pandora over clear, black or white. Something neutral and un-reactive.

When I put each test bead in the kiln, I write down the time so I know how long each bead annealed. The order of striking color goes magenta, purple, blue, green, yellow, opaque red [Edited to add: Double Helix Glassworks says "As it strikes it will go Amber - Ruby - Purple - Green - Blue - Opaque Red"]. If my beads were to turn out dark brick red, they may have spent too long in the kiln. Generally, my beads lighten up the longer they spend in the kiln. A short anneal will give dark purple, and a longer anneal will add in light blue, green and yellow streaks.

Another trick to bringing the color out of Pandora is to really smoosh up the glass. If I'm making a big bead and I have room to twist the glass up a little, I'll do that. How I usually start is I heat a blob of Pandora on the end of the rod, mash it with my mashers, twist it around, then re-heat it into a blob; or, I will heat a blob and then squish it down into a cold brass bead press, then re-introduce it to the heat and make it into a round blob again. When I do either of these things, tiny light-colored spider-webbed lines form on the surface of the blob. I think these spider-webs are the silver grains in the glass activating and getting ready to develop into different colors. After I see a lot of "spider webs" on the glass blob, I will apply it to the mandrel and make the bead. Sometimes I twist the rod as I'm laying the glass down, too.

If a bead is coming out of the kiln so light that it's a pale *poop* color, chances are it never struck properly to begin with. Or maybe it over-struck? I don't know for sure. A bead has to at least get the magenta or purple color first before it will lighten through the blue/green sequence. Why a Pandora bead turns out pale poop-colored is still a mystery to me.

Good luck everyone and I look forward to hearing more of your experiences. Thank you so much for sharing, Sue!

Finished Pandora Sets!

Woo-hoo, my first two Pandora sets, finished and in my Etsy shop!The first set is Pandora and Triton, the second set is encased Pandora. The encased beads are the ones I've been working on over the past few days that I wrote about in my previous blog posts.

I'm doing the happy dance!
;-D

Purple-icious Pandora

I had to try some disk beads with Pandora, of course! These two came out of my kiln yesterday. I'm loving this stunning purple color!This is the purple glass color I've been searching for... it's like a dark EDP without the E or the D!

I've seen this purple in my other Pandora beads, but somehow it looks more deliciously purple-icious in disk form.

I've tried disks with other 104 striking silver glasses, but usually only get a brown disk. Double Helix glasses like Luna, Terranova, Terra and Khaos stay dark brown unless the color is developed with a lot of heat and/or repeated heating. Thin spiral disk beads don't hold up to that kind of heat. Pandora, however, requires no excessive heat so it is the perfect striking glass for disks.

There are several more annealing in my kiln right now!

Re-Striking Pandora in the Kiln

I tried my experiment of re-striking the pale Pandora beads in the kiln (see my previous post). It kind of worked! 'Kind of' because only two out of the three beads got more color.

The beads told me that they would have preferred to be struck properly during the first go-round in the kiln to get the best color, yet they patiently endured a second hot night in the kiln and did their best to make the colors I wanted.

Here are the three pale beads from yesterday:and here they are today:I could have put them in the same order to make it easier to see, but the bead on the left in the first picture is the same bead as the one on the right in the second picture. That's the one that didn't get color. The other two got more blues and purples and very closely match the colorful five beads that struck properly the first night.

Also, when I re-struck the three beads in the second kiln run, I raised the temperature from a 940(F.) garage to a 950 garage and anneal. I let them sit in the kiln for 8 hours at 950. I thought all of them would re-strike, but two out of three ain't bad.

My verdict is that it's better to get the beads to strike right the first time, and if one attempts a re-strike, don't bank on the results. Maybe it's just because these beads are encased. Exposed Pandora probably re-strikes easier. I must say I'm happy with my two out of three though, because it's like taking what would have been an orphan bead and making it into a good bead!

Everyone has a different kiln and kiln environment, so my advice might not be worth a thing to you! Your best bet is to try Pandora and see what works best for you. And, if you end up hating Pandora and you can't get it to do a thing, don't throw it at the wall - sell it to me!!!

Good luck everyone!

Encasing Pandora

I made a slew of encased Pandora beads yesterday. The photo shows all of the beads in the basic order they were made, starting from the beads on the right which were made first and the beads on the left which were made last. The first five beads (on the right) spent 7 hours in the kiln, and the three beads on the left spent 5 hours in the kiln before ramping down. You can see the color difference:Maybe encased, especially heavily encased beads, need to stay in the kiln a little longer than unencased beads. I think if these beads were made unencased, all of the beads would have dark purple and blue color.

In my last post, you can see two encased beads that were annealed for only 4 hours and got great color. Yet the beads on the left (above) annealed for 5 hours and got not much color. What's up with that? I think it's because the beads above have a much heavier encasing than my previous encased Pandora test beads.

I read a post this morning on the Lampwork, Etc. message board written by a beadmaker who got great color on her encased Pandora beads, though she only annealed them for a short time in the kiln. Ugh, I'm so jealous!!! Her kiln temp might be higher than mine, which I've heard is part of the "secret."

I'm taking my three pale Pandora beads and putting them back in the cold kiln right now. I will ramp my kiln up and leave them in there to anneal for another full cycle tonight. Hopefully they will change color, wouldn't that be cool?!

Double Helix Pandora

A new crop of Double Helix odd lot glasses has arrived!
I've had the chance to play with a few of them. One of my favorites so far is not an odd lot glass, it's their new color, Pandora:Here are my first test beads:From left to right, the first two beads are plain spacers. They turned out a nice, vivid but dark purple and blue. The third bead is Pandora swirled over Triton, the fourth bead is Pandora swirled over CiM's Canyon de Chelly, and the fifth and sixth beads are Pandora spacers encased in clear.

With small beads like spacers, I think the color is darker and more limited in spectrum, possibly because there is not much of a cool/hot temperature variance in the small amount of glass to encourage the development of a broad range of color. I think large or sculptural beads will have more variety of color than the dark purple and blue I got in my small beads.

Encasing, however, works great with the small beads. In addition to blue and purple, I also got red, green and yellow. The encasing lightened up the color a little and extended the spectrum.

If you're a lampworker and are wondering about how to use Pandora, I garaged these beads at 940 for 4-6 hours and annealed at 950 for one hour. That is my regular annealing schedule. I formed the beads without any special heating, striking, cooling or reducing. I just shaped them and put them in the kiln as though I were making an Effetre bead.

When the glass goes into the kiln it looks transparent green, maybe with some opaque light green streaks. There is no color on the beads at all other than green. All the color striking happens during the hours it spends in the kiln. When I took my Pandora beads out of the kiln in the morning, I was totally amazed at the color that had bloomed. It was so easy!

Now, back to the torch to make some more Pandora beads!