Hey Kenny!

[Pete VanderLaan]

This can be for general consumption but I thought it of particular interest for Kenny Pieper who melts the same sort of Cad sel red that I do. Kenny has observed and put up with what he calls "Smokers", which are nasty little gas bubbles that rise and pop in the red melt leaving a little black cloud, I suspect from Sulfur but it could indeed be selenium as well. What I found it that after about three days, they get particularly bad and I was loading a pot of a silver opal, so I just scooped to the bottom of the red pot with my ladle, and turned the red glass about three times. The glass fined right out again , the color improved significantly, and the smokers went away for a few days. The I did it again, same results. Now I am at the bottom of that pot getting a gorgeous red after the glass has been in for two weeks.

Go try.

[Kenny Pieper]

Originally Posted by Pete VanderLaan

This can be for general consumption but I thought it of particular interest for Kenny Pieper who melts the same sort of Cad sel red that I do. Kenny has observed and put up with what he calls "Smokers", which are nasty little gas bubbles that rise and pop in the red melt leaving a little black cloud, I suspect from Sulfur but it could indeed be selenium as well. What I found it that after about three days, they get particularly bad and I was loading a pot of a silver opal, so I just scooped to the bottom of the red pot with my ladle, and turned the red glass about three times. The glass fined right out again , the color improved significantly, and the smokers went away for a few days. The I did it again, same results. Now I am at the bottom of that pot getting a gorgeous red after the glass has been in for two weeks.

Go try.

Wow Pete that is amazing after 2 weeks it still looks good. When my red sits for 4 days or so it starts to have some swirls that are a bit on the opaque side when looked at in the sun or with a u.v. light. I have always thought that it is the crystalline structure of the strike growing too big. It sounds like you are heating it up sometimes to charge next to it? Maybe this is good. I've always been afraid to try that. I will have to try mixing it up and see if that helps.
My furnaces have been off for the month and its amazing how different it feels to walk into the shop. Is so stress free. When the furnaces are running there is always a tension in the back of my brain somewhere, like a little buzz. But I do look forward to blowing glass again in a couple of weeks.

[Pete VanderLaan]

It doesn't just look good, it actually looks better! I take it up to 2300F. The stirring really brings the color back up. The ladle finds all this molten Se at the bottom of the pot and it smokes! I have never bought the idea that the selenium volatilizes and the color leaves. I believe that the Selenium, switches valence. I do know that only one state of valence shows color, or so says Chuck Savoie, who I really respect as a color maker.

I thought you might be interested.

[Eben Horton]

Is your ladle rusty?

[Pete VanderLaan]

It is not.

[Justin Thompson]

Originally Posted by Eben Horton

Is your ladle rusty?

them could be fightin' words........

[Eben Horton]

it was a valid question! rusty ladles have given me some interesting glass before..

[Pete VanderLaan]

Iron can be in about five valence states so Eben does have a point. Iron is key to some copper ruby formulas for that reason. In this case, it would not help. I continue to stir and flip this pot of red and it stayed a beautiful red down to the floor of a 75 lb pot as a first or second gather cased in clear. The ladle flipping really eliminated the "Smokers". I have been impressed and would not have expected this. That glass was in the pot over three weeks and turned up to 2300 plus at least four times.

But my ladle is not rusty. Dirty maybe, not rusty.

[Eben Horton]

does sitting that long in the furnace effect its workability or COE?

[Pete VanderLaan]

Not with this glass on L.E.C but the glass is always much stiffer than my clear. Some do get affected but the real villain for those would be fluorine glasses containing either cadmium or selenium. Peiser claimed at one point that he worked an opaque yellow that was compatible when he started the piece and was incompatible by the time he finished it. I suspect that really relates much more to the position that Bullseye has taken on compatibility and its relationship to viscosity. Dan is on the money with that supposition.