Gaffer Chalcedony

The latest striking silver glass hype is all about a COE 96 glass from Gaffer in Auckland, New Zealand, called G109 Chalcedony. Of-course I had to have some!

If you are used to COE 104 glass, you will find Gaffer quite a bit stiffer. The workability of the glass is more like Bullseye, which is COE 90. I only had a chance to make a few test beads and found that shaping the ends with a stiff glass was quite challenging! As you can see, I had to dust off my lil' bead stand for the photography for my bicone didn't stand on either end!!! ;-)

The range of colors is quite astounding! Depending on how you work the glass (and I need to explore this much further), colors from soft pastels to dark jewel tones bloom!




Perhaps it's time to dust off all the COE 96 glass - Reichenbach, Uroboros, Zimmerman and Caliente!