Working With Antimony Options

Does anyone have experience working with glass of antimony? I am not very experienced with alchemy, but I am just interested in producing the glass for talismans and evocation work (or at least test claims by J. Lisiewski that it works). I recently obtained some antimony trioxide and have had some difficulty working with it.

I first tried a small amount in my furnace at 1500 degrees f. as this is the temp. that antimoy trioxide is supposed to melt at 1200, and it fumed away. It turned orange as it fumed and left a small orange clump that was not glass.

I then tried using my torch, which uses mapp gas and oxygen. Because it fumed away the first time, I tried a mixture of borax and antimony trioxide, 1:1. I heated the mixture in a small crucible, think button sized, and poured a few drops that came out clear. I then tried the same process using a slightly bigger crucible. The problem was the top portion would vitrify(?) but it would remain a powder underneath as the top was heated.

Last, I tried a mixture of borax and antimony trioxide, 5:1. I placed a layer of it within a small circular iron dish, about 2 inches diameter. I heated the layer, which took a long time, which bubbled up then became glass. I then added more powder and continued heating till I had the entire dish bottom filled with molten glass. I placed it in the furnace to let it cool slowly, but it cracked anyways. I did the same process again, re-melting the cracked glass with some more of the mixture. Once again, as it cooled, it developed multiple fractures. I managed to glue them together as I have nothing else to do with broken glass. Oddly, this final piece was of a grey/blue/black color.

The next thing I will try is heating up my furnace to the max, 2100 f., which takes a long time and try using a graphite crucible with enough pure antimony that some glass will form even if it fumes away a bit. This seems like the best idea from the beginning, but with it fuming away in my first test it has me wondering if this will be hot enough.

I have a copy of the Triumphal Chariot, and all it really says is to heat it unless I missed something. If anyone has any experiences I'd like to hear them. I'm tempted to use the glued together antimony disk for a talisman as it doesn't look shoddy.

I got some antimony trisulfide recently and tried to make the glass this morning. Used 10 grams of trioxide and .4 of the sulfide. I used my coal furnace, and had unsatisfactory results. After three tries I had an odd piece of grainy orange matter, and two clumps that are metallic. I little shard came off of one of the metallic clumps, and when cleaned off looks ruby red and almost transparent but the rest of the clump looks like metallic antimony. Back to the researching stage.

Being frustrated, I fired up my muffle furnace after posting this. waited till it was about 1600-1700 degrees f. Made a mixture of 20 grams trioxide, 1 gram sulfide, 2 grams Borax. After the powder melted down, I took out the crucible and added more. Tried three times, and produced glass with each pour. The problem seems to be that the oxide and sulfide burn off leaving antimony metal, which clumped up together like slag. The glass poured smoothly, then the slag comes out mixing in with it. The pieces were very brittle and broke and had some of the metal on the back side.

My coal furnace must have been too hot before. The method though does seem to work, just need a bigger crucible for more powder to melt and a ladle to scoop the slag off before pouring.