Is it the superspray?

gone · Post by **gone** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 2:10 pm

I've been noticing some mottling on the surface of one of the pieces that I've been shlepping from show to show and also on all 5 of the pieces I got back from a gallery in Hawaii. It's not obvious, but if you hold the piece at an angle you can see a slight and very even mottling on the surface shine. These are all Bullseye opals with a coating of Superspray airbrushed on. I haven't been able to full fuse BE opals without an overglaze and the Borax didn't give a nice enough finish. Anyway, the Hawaii pieces were perfect when I shipped them and the other was one I have had for a year before any mottling appeared. I know this one has gotten wet several times, but the mottling looks too even for water spots. It makes me concerned about this maybe happening to customers' pieces as well! I wonder if climate has anything to do with it, since everything I have at home looks fine, even the coaster I use every day.
Any Ideas?

Els

Gil Reynolds · Post by **Gil Reynolds** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 4:12 pm

Eli,
I am sorry to hear about you mottling problems. In the 10 years or so that we have been making and selling Super Spray, we have never heard of this problem, so my guess is that there may be something else going on. I canâ€™t say for absolute that it is not the Super Spray, but if it is the Super Spray there is a high probability someone else would have run into the same problem. I would be glad to look at samples to see if I can assist you in solving the problem.

Gil Reynolds

gone · Post by **gone** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 4:44 pm

Thanks, Gil! If I can't figure it out from the responses on this board, I'll send you one of the bowls.

Els

charlie · Post by **charlie** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 4:48 pm

salt spray? some kind of cleaning solution interaction, or environmental conditions at the shop in hawaii?

Don Burt · Post by **Don Burt** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 5:47 pm

Whats your packing material? The one you shlep from show to show spends a lot of time in packing material. could the hawaii one have spent longer than usual packed as well? just brainstorming

Kitty · Post by **Kitty** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 6:22 pm

a passing thought: i assume you washed the pieces to see if the mottling came off. i was thinking sometimes people who work in stores use some strange stuff to clean and polish merchandise, which made me wonder if it might be a residue from Pledge, or who knows what. i dont think the amount of salt in the air inside a gallery would be significant, even if it were right on the ocean. it does make me wonder about the effects of a lot of fluorescent light on superspray, tho, or other hot halogens heating the surface. hope you find out what the cause is.

Geri Comstock · Post by **Geri Comstock** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 7:49 pm

Els -

Could the spots have been there all along and you just didn't notice? Heh, that's happened to me once or twice.

An unsuspected culprit of a problem I had once is when I used plastic cleaner for plexi by mistake on a piece of glass that had SuperSpray on it. It ruined the finish. I refired it and all was well.

Geri

Dani · Post by **Dani** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 7:59 pm

Well, rain water can certainly etch glass.... perhaps they did get wet and were in light that left ghost images after the evaporation process. My other thought was possibly a chemical reaction from using a window cleaner containing ammonia. Just wild guesses, of course. The only time I've gotten blotches on the glass from Super Spray or borax is when underfiring, as you're aware.

Ron Coleman · Post by **Ron Coleman** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 9:54 pm

It's possible that bubble wrap and other plastics in contact with the glass may mark it if stored at high temps for an extended period of time. Most packing plastics aren't very stable and the plasticizers migrate at elevated temperatures.

Try a glass polish like Bert's Glass Wax if you can find it and see if the marks come off.

Ron

gone · Post by **gone** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 10:50 pm

Thanks for all the ideas. I went and looked closely at the affected glass again and it looks like the blue and red glass are the most mottled and the clear bits don't show any mottling at all! I'm thinking there must have been some chemical reaction to a cleaner or something, but I'd sure like to know what, so that I can warn customers against using it. They were all wrapped in bubble wrap, at least for awhile. Ron, since the effect is so uniform (except between colors), do you think the plastic created an environment that changed the surface even where there was no contact?
Dang, I wish you all could just see it for yourselves, it's too weird! I've scrubbed it with a worn Scotch Brite pad with no change. Oh yeah, I clean with SprayWay at the shows.

Els

Kitty · Post by **Kitty** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 11:09 pm

Els, i dont know if the bubble wrap did it, but i put some plastic like that on my sewing machine, to keep dust off, and it turned the white plastic housing of the machine a most unfortunate color of yellow, and it is permanent. petrochemical horribleness. if that mottled pattern looks like where the bubbles of the wrap touched the glass, maybe that's the source of the problem.

Jackie Beckman · Post by **Jackie Beckman** » Thu Sep 25, 2003 8:31 am

Els VandenEnde wrote:Thanks for all the ideas. I went and looked closely at the affected glass again and it looks like the blue and red glass are the most mottled and the clear bits don't show any mottling at all! I'm thinking there must have been some chemical reaction to a cleaner or something, but I'd sure like to know what, so that I can warn customers against using it. They were all wrapped in bubble wrap, at least for awhile. Ron, since the effect is so uniform (except between colors), do you think the plastic created an environment that changed the surface even where there was no contact?
Dang, I wish you all could just see it for yourselves, it's too weird! I've scrubbed it with a worn Scotch Brite pad with no change. Oh yeah, I clean with SprayWay at the shows.

Els

I think I remember Jack Dolper saying he had a problem like this once after wrapping up some of his work in bubble wrap. He, too, had some sort of finish on the piece, if I remember correctly, and when he later unwrapped it he could see the same sort of pattern you're speaking of. Jack - are you out there? Am I remembering this right?? If he doesn't see this Els, have Barbara ask him about it.