104 COE Glass Review

Torso Beads by Joy Munshower

One of our customers, Joy Munshower, posted some wonderful torso beads made with the Effetre glass rod colors ( Sunset, Alexandrite, Green Tea, Earth, Dark Ivory, and Neptune) and Vetrofond glass rod ( Topaz ODD ). They were such great examples of these colors I thought I would share them in this blog.

The murrini used were by Donna Millard

Effetre Neptune (591230)

"Here's the fun side-by-side, before-and-after shots of a female torso sculpted out of "Neptune" glass. When I sculpt it it develops the "pewter" finish over its surface (and "haloed" around the Morning Glory murrini by Donna Millard interestingly)… I then etched the bead to expose the gorgeous mottled teal beneath." – Joy Munshower

Effetre Alexandrite (591226)

I would like to see this bead in person because Effetre Alexandrite shifts hue slightly with different light.

Effetre Earth Cool Color (591688)

Effetre Sunset Pastel (591206)

Effetre Green Tea Cool Color (591680)

This Green Tea bead looks like it was sculpted out of a Marble.

Vetrofond Topaz ODD (791989)

Effetre Dark Ivory (591276)

For more images check out her Facebook page.

What is Zanfirico Cane?

I became aware of the existence of a type of Italian decorative cane called “Zanfirico” the first time I visited Murano back in the early 1990’s.  It is stored in the same warehouse at Effetre with the murrini cane and was a titillating eye candy experience.

Zanfirico cane in the Effetre warehouse.

Zanfirico is a hand pulled cane style that requires a lot of skill to produce and is very popular with the traditional glass blowers on Murano, who do beautiful blown glass pieces with ribbons of fine twisting colors in stunning vases, bowls and other glass objects.

Frantz Art Glass has had Zanfirico cane available for many years, but it was marketed as “Marble Stock” in our catalog and on our website.  The colors of Zanfirico that Frantz had in the past was not as delightful as the new batch that is now available and there is a better selection of cane sizes to pick from with this new shipment.

Since there are all these new styles and colors of Zanfirico, I decided to see what I could do using this cane style to make beads.  I had a lot of fun seeing how I could make fancy 2 mm stringers out of 15 to 20 mm thick pieces that were 2 – 2 ½ inch long of zanfirico cane.  I heat these short thick pieces of zanfirico cane in my annealing kiln at 1000F and then pick them up out of the kiln with a glass punty that is heated at the pick-up end to sticky hot.  I then transfer the zanfirico chunk to the torch flame and start warming it and add a glass punty to the other end.  When the zanfirico chunk starts to get soft, I start to introduce more twists into the cane and when it is ready to pull out, I continue to add more twists to make them compact enough to look good in a bead.  This treatment takes a little practice, but is well worth it.

Here is a side by side photo of the larger zanfirico cane and the stringers I pulled out of it.

While I was experimenting with the zanfirico cane, I discovered that some of the cane patterns actually looked better when I applied a 5 to 6 mm cane directly to a thin bead cylinder on a mandrel and heated and twisted the cane down as I melted it around the bead.  This technique allowed me to use the cane in its’ full size which made the cane pattern larger and more visible and I really liked the results.  Instead of wispy twisted patterns of color, I got beefy twists that were more dramatic.

A photo of the punty and larger sized stringer that I pulled for an 8 mm cane, notice how it is wavy and this goes away when reheated.

If you like exotic stringers, I highly recommend trying some of this new shipment of zanfirico cane.   It saves you from having to make it from scratch and it allows you to introduce details into your beads that are difficult to produce and very lovely to see.

Blue spiral zanfirico over base of CiM Creamsicle with Peace and Cornflower dots	Blue spiral zanfirico over base of CiM Rose Quartz with an accent stringer of goldstone.

Pink spiral zanfirico stringer over bead made from Intense Blue.	Bead made with 6 mm zanfirico cane with multiple threads of blue and yellow that was warped around the mandrel and tips of Intense Blue were added for accents.

Blue spiral zanfirico stringer warped around a round bead made with CiM Pumpkin.	Round bead wrapped with 6 mm cane line zanfirico in black and white over a core of CiM Chalcedony.

Yellow line zanfirico over core of Intense Blue with dots of CiM Pumpkin and Cornflower, made with a 6 mm cane.	Pink line zanfirico over core of CiM Cornflower, made with a 6 mm cane.

Pink spiral zanfirico stringer over CiM Poison Apple.	Goldstone zanfirico with black line over a core of CiM Great Bluedini.

White line zanfirico stringer over CiM Tuxedo.  When line zanfirico is pulled down to stringer size, the zanfirico can become very wispy.	Small round bead made with a 6 mm rod of blue spiral zanfirico.

Click here to view current stock of Zanfirico.

CiM / Messy Color Has Four New Colors!

Oh Boy, its spring and Messy Color has come out with some wonderful new colors to add to their palette.  There are two transparent and two opal colors and they are call Rainforest, Azure, Atlantis and Appletini.

• Rainforest – 511499
• Appletini     – 511497
• Atlantis       – 511598
• Azure          – 511500

Rainforest #511499	Appletini #511497

Atlantis #511598	Azure #511500

These new colors are yummy, yummy, yummy and I had a blast melting them to find out how they work when I made them into beads.

I made beads with silver foil cores that were encased with the two transparent colors Azure and Appletini and they came out great.  I discovered that if you apply the encasement gather when it is too hot, it will yellow your foil.  All I had to do to correct this problem was to apply the encasement gather just a little cooler than white hot and it didn’t yellow the silver foil.

Tabular bead with core of Azure wraped in silver foil and encased with Azure.

Tabular bead with core of Appletini covered with silver foil and encased with Appletini.

Rainforest and Atlantis are both opal colors and I have to say that Messy Color has the nicest and easiest opal colors I have ever used to lampwork beads.  These two new opals are succulent and I couldn’t help myself and I mixed dichroic into three of the beads I made with these new opal colors with good results.

Check out the beads I made out of these new Messy Colors and decide for yourselves, but I give them a huge thumbs up!

Core of bead is made with Rainforest that is covered in dichroic pieces and encased with Appletini.

Bicone of Rainforest with a diagonal band of blue on clear dichroic that is edged with a goldstone ribbon cane.	Bicone of Atlantis with a band of dichroic dots on clear with goldstone ribbon cane.

Round bead made with Appletini decorated with swirls of Mermaid.	Core of bead is made from a twisty made of Azure, Rainforest, white filigrana and a light sky blue filigrana.

What is a Cotisso?

What is a Cotisso? Having never heard the name Cotisso before, I had to do some research to find out what they were talking about at the Effetre factory.  It seems that this is the name they use to refer to a chunk of glass that here in the U.S is called glass cullet.

Large chunk of yellow cotisso from Effetre

So why am I talking about cotisso’s (A.K.A. cullet)?  Because when Mike went over to Europe last October, he got the factory to let him pick out a bunch of different colors of these intriguing chunks of glass and Frantz Art Glass is now offering some of them up for sale.

Piles of cotisso (cullet) being stored on patio at Effetre factory.

I think cotisso’s are fabulous looking and look like surreal chunks of precious minerals.  I got a big batch of cotisso’s a decade ago after pestering the factory manager endlessly to let me pick out some chunks to include in the glass shipment we were working on at that time while we were on Murano, Italy.

I love the cotisso’s that I have and I set them on my worktables, in windows in my studio and house.  I also manicured several choice chunks by smoothing the sharp edges with a handheld dremel and I use them in my booth display when I sell my beads because the cotisso’s add such a delicious splash of glistening color to my bead display.

Effetre puts the more expensive colors of cotisso's in cans to keep close track of them.

You may ask why I smooth the edges of the glass chunks I have in my bead display and it is because they are so beautiful, people want to touch them.  To prevent anyone accidentally cutting themselves on a shape edge, I took a grinding tip mounted in a dremel tool and smoothed the less friendly edges off the glass chunks.

Another question I kept asking the manager at the Effetre factory is what do they keep them for?  The answer turned out to be very interesting!  When they measure out a new, from scratch batch of glass ingredients, it is all in powder form and is very slow to warm and melt into glass.  They introduce a few chunks of cotisso’s of the color that is being melted and the solid mass of the cotisso heats up much faster than the powder and speeds up the entire melt.

When the factory is done pulling rods from a new batch of glass in one of their furnaces, they move the last of the glass batch to a shallow cast iron bowl while it is molten hot and they set it outside on their patio and let the glass air cool.  The glass naturally fractures while it is cooling in the iron bowls and when it is completely cool, their turn the bowl over and dump the chunks of glass out onto the concrete patio.

Iron bowl of hot yellow glass cooling to become cotisso.

Three legged iron bowls of cooling glass.

Sometimes, the piles of cullet are very tall and they look especially beautiful when they are transparent and the sun shines through the glass sitting in the sun.

Transparent Aqua cotisso's.

Purple opaque cotisso's.

Don’t miss this chance to get a beautiful unique cotisso for yourself.

Group of three legged iron bowls for cooling cotisso.

Cotisso being stored in big plastic containers.

Group of opaque orange cotisso.

How to get the Perfect Clear 104 COE Glass

I am writing about getting a perfect clear again because I still get many requests for what is a perfect 104 COE clear. I have found that it doesn’t matter so much who makes the clear glass rods as much as it matters if the rods are clean or not. Read more

Creative Inspiration Can Come From Anywhere

This may become a recurring theme of mine, but I think it is important that people know how the creative process can manifest itself to motivate an artist to generate a particular piece of art. Read more

About Vetrofond ELO and ELO-Pale

There has been a number of unusual “Odd” Ivory based glass colors coming from the Italian glass factory called Vetrofond lately. Read more

Glass Colors I Like and Why (10-15-10)

The new shipment of “Odd” neutral colors from Vetrofond are a fabulous base color for working with many of those expensive silvered glass colors made by Double Helix, Trautman Art Glass and Precision 104. Read more

Tips and Techniques: How to Deal with Shocky Glass Rods

The quickest and easiest way to reduce the shockyness of certain glass rod colors is to set up a warming station for the glass rods that is within reach of where you sit to make beads. Read more

News about the Boatload of Colors in the New Messy Shipment

A new shipment of CiM/Messy Color glass has just arrived at Frantz Art Glass and there are loads of new unique colors and nine new special assortments. Read more