| Original Message: Re: Foil Beads |
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A variety of foils have been used for decorating glass beads. The Venetians have also used an application of gold powder, that produced a somewhat different effect—and may have extended the use of gold, such that less actual metal was required to make a good lustrous appearance. But in most cases the foil or powder was covered by glass which protected it from vaporizing entirely. Regarding avventurina glass: This is sometime characterized as having resulted from "copper filings being added to the glass." This is a great over-simplification. However the copper was added to the glass, the copper itself was melted into the glass batch. Then the batch was held at the correct temperature for a required length of time, allowing the copper to crystalize—forming avventurina glass. Seen under a microscope, these millions or billions of crystals have the form of perfect tiny pyramids of copper, or as two pyramids fused base-to-base. They are not merely "filings." In recent years, at Java, where many reproductions of old beads have been made over the previous nearly-30 years, some beadmakers have made versions of gold-sandwich glass and foil beads—and they now use aluminum foil to substitute for silver or gold foil. So it is possible to use aluminum foil to make foil beads. (I was so-informed on my first trip to Java in 2008. And this was reconfirmed by a serious bead importer from Holland a few years later.) JDA. All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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