Still making stringer, but when I was about to start this morning's batch I realized I'd have to label the stringer for easier identification. I have two very close shades each of orange, yellow, red and green, and even though they're distinguishable in the rod, the stringers side by side are almost identical. So, I came up with a simple numbering system for the rods and put a little flag of tape with the number on the corresponding stringer. This project is all about doing way more work than I have time for, so why not add a couple more steps?
As I go through and melt the glass to make the stringer, I'm trying to note differences in the glass, but I'm having a hard time noticing differences. It's all glass, it all melts, it droops if you don't keep turning it, but I can't see many more differences as I'm melting the glass?
I did notice a difference between my two shades of turquoise. One shade was really easy to work with, didn't melt too fast or too slow, and when I pulled the stringer, it pulled nice and easy, but the other shade of turquoise was so soft, very liquidy when it melted, I had trouble controlling the droop even though I was turning the rod constantly when forming my initial gather of glass. Then when I pulled the stringer, the droop drooped and I ended up pulling a very uneven stringer. That second turquoise also reduced (I think that's the word) in the flame much easier than the first turquoise, and I ended up with some copper red in the stringer.
I guess I'm just not very good at discerning the various working characteristics of the different colors, but that's what this project is all about. Making a permanent record of how the colors interact, and hopefully through this process I learn more about how to work glass in general.
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