Brocks Irid to Irid Technique

[pclark]

I was wondering if someone might explain a little about how to do the clear and black irid techinque that Brock has taught some people. I searched the archives and found one of Ron Colemans pieces done that way but wanted to see if someone could shed a little more light on this? Maybe I will get lucky and the master himself would write a little about it?

Thanks!

[Ron Coleman]

The double irid is easy to do, the two pieces have irid coatings fired facing each other. ie trapped between the layers. By removing the irid fron one sheet or the other you get a pattern of colors depending on which irid is left on the sheets.

Both irid coatings give one color, irid on the bottom sheet only gives another color and irid on the top sheet only yeilds a third color.

One thing to remember is that two irid coatings fired together will not fuse to each other, so there has to be some amount of single irid (either piece) which will fuse. Open glass around the edges (without irid on either piece) seals and gives the best looking edge.

For starters look at quilt patterns which are usually done in four colors for ideas.

Of all my pieces, this is the hottest seller and really popular with people that have kids for some reason. Maybe not as formal as my other surff.

Ron

[Brock]

Ron has covered it pretty well. I would stress the importance of a glass to glass, (no irid) contact at the edges of your piece to ensure a good fuse. By blasting different thickness borders on the two pieces of glass, you will get a "stepped" border. And, the most important point . . . if you blast off the irid on both pieces of glass, in the same place, you make black glass.

Expensive black glass!

So, if you blast irid off the base(black irid) blank, leave irid in that location on the clear irid blank. I do most of my blasting on the black blank, the clear blank normally just gets borders, details, and ghost borders.

Ghost borders are what you get when you blast against a resisted area, into a non-resisted area. You're basically free hand blasting on one edge of your spray pattern. The blast feathers out to nothing, without a hard edge. Turn the pressure down to approx. 20 lbs. for this effect. Brock

[pclark]

Thanks for the info guys! I shall give it a try. I think I will try a test piece first to test. Have a happy, healthy and prosperous new year!