Sometimes, the Inevitable Happens

I KNEW it was gonna break! But did it have to break in such a nasty way???

Lots of glassy bits STILL in this cut!

I'm talking about a bead, of course. I was working on a base for a bead for my ABS entry (due today! Silver parts drying off after a sulfer dip, waiting...on me!) and I was reverse encasing. I knew I wanted a white base but the bead was so large and required so much stringer work, I had to reverse encase white over a clear core.

And suddenly, I noticed that new rod of white was not turning clear in my piping hot flame. WTH??? I added a bit more... and then super heated it.... still off white. OFF white???? I started to suspect what I had done and threw the bead in the kiln to run a test.

I keep my Bullseye rods on the left side of my work space; 104 on the right. I must have grabbed a Bullseye rod of French Vanilla. I grabbed a rod of Bullseye opaque pink, heated it and placed the suspect rod on top in the flame. I carefully pulled a stringer, cut it and waited.... absolutely nothing happened...which means that yes, I was using 90 on my 104 bead. And it was now doomed to break.

Why, oh why, didn't I pull it out of the kiln and toss it in the water??? Maybe, I just thought it would be cool to see HOW it broke the next day.

Only, when I opened the kiln, it was not broken. So I whacked on the kiln.... STILL not broken. It was pretty warm - around 200. So I plunged it into water around 40 degrees. It did not break.

Thinking I may have used so little 90, I started fussing at myself for not finishing that bead. I put my pliers on the rod and grabbed that bead in my hand... and it shattered to bits with my index finger taking a direct hit...I'm still picking little glass bits out three days later!


I'm gonna go finish that ABS project and nurse my cut finger some more. Tomorrow's post will be about jewelry and sulfur dipping. See you here on Holly's Folly Bead Blog.