Testing: Terra2

This weekend I started playing with a new Double Helix glass, Terra2.  Their original Terra is one of the most fabled glasses in lampworking existence.  It had a reputation for striking easily to an entire rainbow of colors.  Unfortunately the formula was difficult to duplicate reliably and Terra has been out of production for a few years now.

I never had a chance to try it.  Terra’s heyday came and went while I was on break from lampworking.  So, I can’t compare Terra2 to its predecessor but I have been putting it through its paces to see what I can get it to do.  Here is one of the first pieces I made, a hollow heart bead:

For reference, that’s a little smaller than the hollow shard beads I’ve been making lately.  I’ll eventually grab a photo of it in my hand for scale.

I’ve found Terra2 a bit difficult to strike effectively.  It tends to turn lovely blues and purples right as it’s first melted, but the heat applied during the shaping process tends to overstrike it to muted pastels and then to plain tan.  A deep reheating will start the striking cycle over again as you can see from the purple patch at the bottom of the heart pendant.  However, if an entire piece is reheated that much it’s hard to maintain the shape.

Terra2 has a reputation for doing wonderful things under a clear encasement, so I made a 3/16″ big hole bead encased with Aether:

This bead definitely turned out more on the overstruck/pastel side.  It’s not a bad effect, but I’d like to figure out how to shape Terra2 beads while obtaining the full range of colors.  I’ll experiment more with it this week…