Thursday, April 3, 2008

Kugler Beadmaking 104 versus ASK 104 glass

I ordered a bit of the Kugler to test against my ASK glass and it should arrive either today or tomorrow. There is confusion about what happened with the deal between Kugler and Arrow Springs and whether the copyright is for the name or the glass recipe. One thing for sure, some of the colors are so beautiful it would be a shame not to have them any more.
I have a tough choice-- if I want to continue using this glass I need to buy the Kugler when I run out of the ASK......BUT, now I hear that Arrow Springs got stuck with 20,000 pounds of unusable Kugler clear glass rods when Kugler refused to recall it(at around $30/pound,that is alot to have to eat...)....not good......I can't buy from a company that would do that.....
Sigh....I gotta think about this...I may boycott buying the B-line of Kugler in support of Arrow Springs.....it's a tough choice and I have to find out more of the story behind it. I don't know if I could stop ordering the K line.....such pretty color! Oh my....

Well, the package arrived and some of the colors are identical. Silver Cinnamon looks like Silver Rattan on the outside, but the core looks like the dark cinnamon color in the ASK glass. This batch of Silver Rattan looks more beige(like Effetre Sage Premium) than the gorgeous bamboo color of the past pulls. I am sure it will look very similar once melted....
Desert Chameleon or tobacco, is more transparent in this pull. When heated, it does goes transluscent/opaque and looks just like the old batch. 
The Olive is identical to the rods sold as ASK. The color is lighter than the first pull of Olive which was absolutely stunning. When reduced, the color darkens a bit , but not like the old batch.
Pink Lady Slippers is lighter than the rods I have from a previous batch. 
Mystic Grey rods are gorgeous! Slightly more bluish. It remains to be seen how it will look once melted, but the rods at least are beautiful!
Caramel Apple looks very close to Silver Rattan--that beigy look, but it is slightly more yellow in the rods. 
New Colors:
Light Sand Brown-- The rods look ivory and when encased, remains ivory.....I used it with silver colors and it appears a dusty red sand color--looks very much like when silver hits Vetro Seashell pink....it gets a thin surface brown webbing....
Dark Sand Brown-similar to all the other silver browns....looks like Vetro Lime Sweet in rod form, but when melted as very close to rattan....
My Orange Crush--looks like what you would expect opaque orange to look like
Black Mirror--just looks black--I need to melt it to see :-)
Smokey grey--A pretty neutral grey transparent in the rod form. On the website it looks opaque. Unannealed test beads are grey transparent. Annealed, the grey is a very dark brown--almost an olive brown. In normal light, it is almost black.

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