OCR another thought process

Oh reading looking for answers to my kiln question I found this question in their http://www.glasscolor.com/community/conference_call_1.aspx page

Now I want to know if anyones done it.. Sound pretty exciting though

Question:
Could you tell us about the photosensitive Gold Ruby (G-221)?
Answer: Well, we're actually particularly proud of introducing the photosensitive Gold Ruby. And we're kind of surprised that nobody has grabbed the ball and run with it. We are kind of expecting that somebody eventually will do that. It's one of the first really new things that's come along in glassblowing in the last 400 years. And, amazingly enough, it's been invented by Americans, and we've really done nothing much but take the knowledge that's been produced in America and make it available to the studio glass scene. The key to the whole thing is having the correct lamp. Unless you have the correct lamp with the right wave length of light, then you're not going to have any success with it. Other than that, it's a fairly simple process. It's actually no different to a gold ruby, except that you blow it - when you blow it, it goes completely clear. When you get it, it's a clear rod. And it requires irradiation by UV light of the correct wave length. And then it requires a heat up to annealing temperature again for the image to become apparent. The color rod needs to be completely covered from UV light until it is ready to be used. You can use anything that blocks UV light. Keep it in the tube at all times. Where you're blocking the light, the glass will remain clear. Or it may, if the clear is overlaid on an opal background or some other color background, that color will remain the same. But where it's exposed to UV light and then heated, that becomes a gold ruby. And you can get extremely fine detail. You think of it like a film. It's literally film stock, but it happens to be a glass rod. You treat it just like any other rod, except you've got to keep it in the dark. But, you know, it's not so sensitive as film that you can't take it out of its wrapping and chop a bit off and blow it and put it in the color box. But the next day it needs to be kept in the dark until you're ready to put your design on it. And wherever you stop the UV, then nothing will happen. And wherever the UV is allowed to get through, then you've then created a lightened image there, which you will only see when you develop those. And developing it doesn't involve a whole bunch of chemicals like film. It just simply consists of getting it hot, as in 900 Fahrenheit roughly. It has to be heated evenly as well. If it's not exposed evenly, and if it's not heated evenly, then the tella development will not be even either. What we recommend is that people start off modestly. One of the most spectacular ways to see it work is doing like Italian cup work, where you've got a garriage. And you blow your cup on day one. Take it out of the annealler the next morning. Decorate it in whatever fashion you like. Expose it to UV light. Then stick it in the garriage. And you'll start to see it just go off in the garriage when you're ready to stick your cup on your stem. And when you go to the glory hole, it's just boomph! the image just happens almost instantly. It's really spectacular. That's kind of the coolest way to figure out how to get it to work, rather than making big pieces, and opening and shutting kiln doors waiting to see if it goes off. It's just such a quick, instantaneous, fabulous way of seeing how it works. But there's a whole work sheet on this, as you know. Where people can read all of the detail that they need to get it to work. You can find that on the website. Essentailly , when OCR receives the rods it is completely covered and taped. You don't have to be that paranoid about it . You can take it out of the wrapper. Don't do it under bright sunlight. But the sort of light that is in an average room is not going to hurt it for just a few seconds. If you break it off, the same amount as you'd break off if you were using a gold ruby, stick it in your hot box or your toaster, whatever, and just treat it like any other rod. It's just that if you leave it lying around, after a few days, you've spoiled it. And what that means is that it's lost its photosensitivity. It's just become an ordinary gold ruby. So it's not like you've done your money totally. It doesn't look like a gold ruby. It's still clear. But the moment you heat it up, it'll turn into a ruby.

Example http://www.glasscolor.com/products/default.aspx?cID=26&pID=141