Striking
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| − | + | Glass is whats called an amorphous solid, which means it has no set crystaline structure to it. It would look more like a liquid when viewed at the molecular level with it's constituents in kind of a soup. Unlike most solids we come into contact with which have a rigid crystal structure to it, any metals, ice, minerals, and rock (excluding obsidian). | |
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| + | When "striking" a color or fume what you are actually doing is forcing the metal ions which make up the colors you see in the glass to crystallize in and around the rest of the solid glass matrix. When you heat the glass up HOT it incorporates the metal ions into itself in a non crystaline form, thus turning it translucent. You can think of it as growing sugar crystals in a super saturated water/sugar mixture. | ||
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| + | So the goal when striking is to heat the glass enough to induce metal crystal growth but not enough to get the glass matrix into a liquid state or allow the metals to migrate to the surface. | ||
Latest revision as of 05:12, 9 March 2012
Glass is whats called an amorphous solid, which means it has no set crystaline structure to it. It would look more like a liquid when viewed at the molecular level with it's constituents in kind of a soup. Unlike most solids we come into contact with which have a rigid crystal structure to it, any metals, ice, minerals, and rock (excluding obsidian).
When "striking" a color or fume what you are actually doing is forcing the metal ions which make up the colors you see in the glass to crystallize in and around the rest of the solid glass matrix. When you heat the glass up HOT it incorporates the metal ions into itself in a non crystaline form, thus turning it translucent. You can think of it as growing sugar crystals in a super saturated water/sugar mixture.
So the goal when striking is to heat the glass enough to induce metal crystal growth but not enough to get the glass matrix into a liquid state or allow the metals to migrate to the surface.
