using murrini's without disk nippers?

[zippoz]

i have about 2 inches of a yin and yang one and no disk nippers to cut it down, im nnot really sure how to use it otherwise without destroying it.

a friend told me that i could melt the end of it onto the piece/marble i was working on and then "flash it" and it'll snap right off, what the hell does he mean by "flash it" and are there any other ways???

thanks alot, sorry for all the posts today.

[Brian Newman]

Nippers are the worst way to use picture cane in my opinion.
Attach it to a piece of clear rod of the same diameter and anneal it.
when you want to take a slice off the end, simply heat a slightly larger rod white hot on the tip and warm the surface of the cane red. Stick them together and hold them vertical so the heat rises into the cane from the blob. at just the right time pull and give the cane and wiggle. it should snap right off leaving a slice as thin as 1/2mm. can't do that with nippers. It's all about heat stress and the acute angle around the edge of the cane.

[Brian Newman]

practice makes perfect. vertical helps keep the heat even if you don't want wedges.

[zippoz]

cooool, thanks ill go try that later.

[IrieGuy05]

To clarify, the idea is to not get the cane your snapping off of so hot, like not even liquidy at all right? Cause that would distort it and make it way less likely to snap off. I tried to put a millie on a chillum for the 1st time the other day, it didn't go to well. I put 3 of them right on the constricion for practice, 1 was ok, the other 2 smeared or got smeared by the clear I put on top. So you were saying to put it on a clear blob and put that on the peice? I tried putting them right on the peice, I called this thing the 3 mille chillie, hahaha.

[jiminyrootkit]

using the larger clear rod as above will make it real easy to just snap it off and punty the back, cut off the big clear rod and just round the little stump of bigger rod into a lens with the chip under it....then encase the chip (or don't) and weld it to your.....whatever.
-f

[Brian Newman]

I stick the rod straight to the piece and flame cut into a prunt unless I want to add a backing colour first

[Breed]

Check out the pipemakers forum. Dwaine did a really good tutorial on this.