Hey guys. I’m Thomas Grimmett and I make the color here at Glass Alchemy.

Today I want to talk to you about a neutral flame

A neutral flame will keep your colors nice and poppin, it will also help your greens and sparkles from cracking.

We get a lot of questions here about working with color on a daily basis.  To us here at GA, a neutral flame refers to a balanced mixture of propane and oxygen and it is the flame we recommend you work in.

Alright, we,re all ready to go.  I’m going to show you how to set a neutral flame using Amazon Night, 987.  This is a good color to use for this test because of its high metal content.

If the flame is reducing, Amazon Night will show us almost instantly.

Alright, I’ve got my torch on, and what looks to be a nice working flame. I am going to stick the rod into the torch and just heat it up to an orange glow, not fully melted.  If the flame is neutral, the rod will not change color, but as we can see, I have some reduction, which means I am not working neutral.

Now I am going to turn my propane down a quarter turn and try the test again. 

The rod stayed black, which means I have found the neutral zone.

It’s important to realize that no flame will ever be neutral from base to tip and each torch has a different neutral zone. The area closest to the torch face tends to be reducing so don’t work too close.  When properly set, the middle section is neutral and is the ideal flame for working color.