My Favorite Glass: Devardi

I love getting my hands on new glass and playing but I think I could benefit from being a little more constructive and methodical in my testing and experimentation. So, to put me on that path, I am going to post, a couple times a month, about different types of glass and my results; a virtual journal that I can share (and not misplace).

I stumbled across Devardi glass while browsing on the ABR Imagery website. Some of the colors looked intriguing and others looked like the standard effetre colors.

To begin, Devardi glass is from India and, per the website http://www.devardiglass.com/) it is hand pulled and lead free. Their goal is to provide a more economical glass option for lampworkers and given that most of the glass is $6.00USD or less per pound, they seem to have achieved that goal. I bought a couple of rods of colors that I thought looked interesting and here’s what I found.

Overall, the rods are hand pulled and not very consistent in diameter. This doesn’t pose much of a problem to me and I can work with it. I do recommend inspecting each rod before use for inclusions. I’m not sure what these are, some look like kiln brick, but these are foreign objects, not glass, that will cause the rod to explode when heated. These tend to appear at one end and can be nipped out or carefully heated and tweezed out.

Examples of the hand pulled nature of the rods 

Examples of inclusions

The transparents are stiffer which makes them ideal for hollow beads but a little tricky in blowing out for vessels.

Then, there are the bubbles. Some rods seem to bubble up like seeded glass and others less so but I think if you are using this glass, you should count on some bubbles and just work around it. I love bubbles so I’m a happy camper!

In summary, I bought a good stock of some of the interesting colors and look forward to adding them to my permanent palette but the colors that are similar to effetre, well, I’ll stick with the devil I already know.

Now, the fun stuff, the colors:

Dark Rose and Rose (I didn’t try pale rose). Can you see the difference, not much of one is there.

The dark rose rod is on the top with examples to the left and regular rose rod on the bottom with examples to the right.



Ink Blue.  I really like this ink blue better than effetre not only for the price difference but for the fact that Devardi Ink is much lighter.

Devardi Ink

Effetre Ink



Ice Blue.  The photos that ABR and Devardi have for this glass are criminal!  This may be my favorite find of them all!  This light blue is more aqua than effetre light blue and unlike the transparent pale and light blues and aquas of effetre, Devardi Ice blue does not scum up when worked hot.

Ice Blue



Dark Purple.  This was OK in a hollow but the heat involved in making even a small vessel caused it to devitrify.

 Examples of Devardi Opaque Dark Purple



Cranberry.  This has the same problem as any other transparent red by any other manufacturer which is that the color burns off if it’s pulled too thin.  However, the color is great and it isn’t cloudy like effetre transparent red.

Devardi Transparent Cranberry

"Opaque pink".  Devardi currently has two colors that they call opaque pink.  One is called lipstick pink and the price is $10USD per pound.  I didn’t try that color but I did try the other “opaque” pink.  I would be hard pressed to tell the difference between this color and medium pink alabaster.  It has that semi opaque/opalino/alabaster quality in rod form and at every stage in the flame especially when it shocks and shatters into a pile on your bench.  If you choose to bother with this, preheat it in the kiln first.

Devardi "Opaque" Pink

I hope you enjoyed a brief tour of my experience with Devardi glass!  I have a list of glasses to explore like this so stop by again soon!