DEQsearchingforclue

Honest-to-Pete, DEQ’s search engine cursor is an image of Bigfoot walking. (I, er, did editorialize a bit on the text)

I promised you an eye-witness report of the now-infamous Oregon DEQ art glass financial impact hearing.

It was intended to discover what it’s costing manufacturers to meet DEQ’s ever-changing pollution control directives by October 1. This is the meeting where DEQ inexplicably wouldn’t allow Bullseye to answer questions about its own factory, and instead spent two hours guesstimating, hemming, and hawing about Bullseye, while the glassmakers that were allowed to speak kept scratching their heads.

I wrote three different 5,000-word posts about it, edited and fiddled until my fingers bled, but it finally all boiled down to the cadmium yellow statement at right.

So, if there’s not much point in worrying about the colors we DON’T have, why not focus on the ones we do?

DEQ: May 27, 2016

Today I wasted three hours in DEQ’s financial-impact-on-glass hearing, a farce that made me rage, cry, and dream about sending the entire DEQ leadership to the hexavalent chromium mines.

Since nobody ever fixed bureaucratic incompetence by yelling louder, though, I’m giving my blood pressure a break and moving on.

Join me?

Over the next few weeks I’ll post about stuff that I (and other, far more talented artists) are creating with available glass. At some point we’ll be tossing this onto a gallery site with tutorials.

Glassists of ALL stripes (not just fusers and casters): If you’d like to join in, add a comment to this blog and let me know you’re ready to be a guest project tutor (BarbaraC, I’m already working on yours (finally!)).

Or you can post to one of these Facebook groups or websites and someone in our group will add it to the list:

I’m going to assume that DEQ will manage to function properly and get the glass factories back to producing their full lines of glass by mid-autumn. (Given the history, that’s a big assumption to make, but…power of positive thinking and all that…)

Until then, how would you go about making red glass? Orange? Aventurine green? What can you make from the glass that IS being produced? What clever ways have you come up with to stretch your supply of UNavailable glass?

Get creative, folks, then share. I wanna have fun finding new glasscraft!

So to get started, what glass IS available?

farce

Spectrum is closing

Sadly, Spectrum is closing its doors. Their last sheet glass will be manufactured sometime in July, blowing nuggets until autumn, and then it’s over.

Uroboros will pick up some of their glass, but not Spirit, Opal Art, and Baroque glasses, and the glass will lose the machine-rolled texture. Hopefully, someone will pick up the blowing nuggets, because they’re not only popular with glassblowers, they also make really nice casting cullet.

Still, the news that Spectrum glass won’t be entirely lost is great!

Available glass colors

If you know of other fusible glass supplies, please let me know and I’ll add to this post. Thanks!

Available Uroboros glasses

Note: Mostly because I’m lazy, I’m not including irids, textures, and multicolor glasses. If the multicolor you want has a color not on this list, assume it’s not available.

Uroboros still has a few cadmium and chromium glasses, rationed to 40sf per product), but most of the reds, oranges, and yellows are out of stock in both 90 and 96. They will sell available cadmium/chromium glass rod in up to 4lb bundles, one per customer; they aren’t selling single-color stringer packs in those colors, although some Mardi Gras (mixed) packs are available.

If you’re local, the Uroboros store in their factory also stocks Spectrum glasses, and still has most colors, including transparent reds, oranges, and yellow, and opal yellow.

Available Bullseye glasses

Note: “Limited production” means that there’s only one filtered furnace producing all these cadmium glasses, a fraction of normal levels. IOW, limited may be an understatement, so don’t expect miracles.

For casting billet, assume that the colors are available until further notice (yay!).

For glass rod, do NOT assume that the sheet formulation is the same as the rod (although it is for frit, of course). It isn’t always. But according to Bullseye “assume all other forms are available.”

Available* 90 COE

  • 330 Antique White Opal
  • 402 Aqua Blue
  • 413 Caribbean Blue
  • 00 Clear
  • 403 Cobalt Blue
  • 400 Cobalt Blue Opal
  • 408 Cornflower Blue Opal
  • 901 Golden Amber
  • 902 Pale Amber
  • 436 Periwinkle
  • 905 Root Beer
  • 521 Sesame
  • 401 Sky Blue
  • 575 Walnut
  • 05 White

Available* 96 COE

  • 402 Aqua Blue
  • 00 Clear
  • 070 Cloud Opal
  • 424 Cobalt Blue
  • 103 Deep Gold-Pink Striker
  • 1108 Medium Amber Transparent
  • 1308 Pale Blue
  • 045 Red Reactive Opal
  • 003 Red Reactive Transparent
  • 421 Riviera Blue Opal
  • 404 Sapphire Blue
  • 906 Straw
  • 57 Walnut
  • 200 White

96 casting glass

  • 01-96 Water Clear
  • 025-96 Light Celadon
  • 077-96 Zinc
  • 345-96 Citrine
  • 348-96 Cork
  • 402-96 Aqua Blue
  • 404-96 Sapphire Blue
  • 406-96 Electric Blue
  • 4065-96 Glacier Blue
  • 455-96 Aquamarine
  • 906-96 Straw
  • BMG-96 Mardi Gras

Available (full production)

  • 0139 Almond
  • 1808 Aqua Blue Tint
  • 1101 Clear
  • 1015 Clear Silver to Gold, Alchemy Series
  • 0420 Cream
  • 1401 Crystal Clear
  • 1138 Dark Amber
  • 1821 Erbium Pink Tint
  • 0137 French Vanilla
  • 0143 Lacy White
  • 1217 Leaf Green (NEW)
  • 1920 Lemon Tint
  • 1437 Light Amber
  • 0216 Light Cyan
  • 1842 Light Neo-Lavender Tint
  • 1416 Light Turquoise Blue
  • 0138 Marzipan
  • 1242 Medieval Green (NEW)
  • 1137 Medium Amber
  • 0142 Neo-Lavender
  • 1442 Neo-Lavender Shift
  • 0403 Opaline
  • 0013 Opaque White
  • 1820 Pale Yellow Tint
  • 0421 Petal Pink
  • 0009 Reactive Cloud
  • 1019 Red Reactive Clear
  • 1100 Tekta
  • 1116 Turquoise Blue
  • 0920 Warm White
  • 0113 White

VERY limited production

  • 0329 Burnt Orange
  • 0337 Butterscotch
  • 0120 Canary Yellow
  • 1321 Carnelian
  • 1126 Chartreuse
  • 0309 Cinnabar
  • 0224 Deep Red
  • 1322 Garnet Red
  • 0334 Gold Purple
  • 1025 Light Orange Striker
  • 0320 Marigold Yellow
  • 1320 Marigold Yellow
  • 0125 Orange
  • 1125 Orange
  • 0225 Pimento Red
  • 0321 Pumpkin Orange
  • 0124 Red
  • 1122 Red
  • 1022 Red-Orange (rod)
  • 1119 Sienna
  • 0220 Sunflower Yellow
  • 0025 Tangerine Orange
  • 0024 Tomato Red
  • 0310 Umber
  • 0203 Woodland Brown
  • 1120 Yellow