stainless punties with boro

[Big Jay]

had a marble today that wouldn't round so I decided to give the stainless punty a try since Drew's book recomends it. That is freaking sweet. So easy to spin.
I didn't find I had to watch the heat on the connection as much as I thought actually I kept it too hot so the stainless didn't stay perpendicular gonna have to be more careful on that. But the speed I can spin at is incredible and since the punty is true I can line it up and get it spinning without worrying the warble in the punty will make the marble worse.

[Chris Juedemann]

They get really hot.

[Big Jay]

really? I completely melted part of the punty , but only worked the mib for about 15 minutes using the same stainless punty and never even got warm.

[petto]

I use em alot and they never get hot. Like jpatter said you will melt the end of the rod off before you feel any heat going towards your hand. I use them for plucking r balls and tubes shut all the time. Saves alot 4-7mm glass that way. Got to get a SS blowtube next.

[Lurch]

I use em alot and they never get hot. Like jpatter said you will melt the end of the rod off before you feel any heat going towards your hand. I use them for plucking r balls and tubes shut all the time. Saves alot 4-7mm glass that way. Got to get a SS blowtube next.

I used the mandrel you gave me back in '05 today to tease together glass.

Never tried it before... worked great.

Jonas.... you da man!

[Sea Monkey]

I've never tried one, but I think I'm going to have to.

[Joe Blow]

I've heard about this but never tried it. What thickness is the stainless rod that you are using? What is the most prefered diameter? Does the mib want to fall off if you don't keep the connection point warm? thanks for the info.

[Cosmo]

I've tried it, but I didn't think it worked any better than using a glass punty.

[gypsea]

we've been using one for making large dichro cane with marcel's press.

have tried a 3/32 mandrel for small things with success also.

[Big Jay]

I think mine are 3/32 stainless as well.

[VinE]

I use em for anything over 2". or big (short) cane pulls. I bought NW iron works one from marcel, but i cut it in half because it was too big for what im doing on a reg basis & I like using 1 hand.

[Joe Blow]

thanks for the feed back guys

[Gibsons Glassworks]

never used a solid punty but i use my stainless blowtube all the time for blow ins.

[Master Yoda]

Never tried, actually ordered a stainless blowtube today

[lout]

I use steel rods constantly to remove glass ,close tube,twisst lines on the back of marbles I have 3mm-4mm

[Glacier_Arts_Studio]

wow, way back when, i started a thread about my stainless punty...
it worked well when i was working pendents and marbs but, i couldn't
get it to stay on hollow pieces... anytime i would start working away
from the punty end, it would start to fail as the heat base diminished...
i got my piece of stainless, out of an old photo exposure unit so,
i have no idea as to it's grade but, i did work on the end of it, to
make a nipple that i would stick clear to and that really help,
with the problems... i was going to fuse some quartz to
that end, to see if that solved all the issues but, never did...
i just find it easier and faster to use 10mm rod and
sometimes even bigger for my punties...


thats my personal experience with it...

..

[Skye Perry]

i use them alot .I use it for patties on the press .I also have one that marcel customized for me with a hook on the end to hook in the ceiling and pull huge vac stack pulls .I have never had them get hot either. I did take rubber tape and coat it because the handles do rust .

[LTD]

I use one to clean up terminations and clean stuff up when I am low on small diameter rod. I should do it more often and save glass... No complaints

[styles1 torchlife]

sky are you doing your vack stacking by hand then using the SS rod with hook to strech? Can you elaborate a little?

[marcel]

Just a couple clarifications...

My punties are made in house or by my machinist, Kevin. I have no affiliation at all with NW ironworks.

My punties are currently made with a chromoly shaft, not stainless. The heads are solid stainless but the shafts are high end chromo tubing....like what you'd make a bike out of. Super light and super stiff. (to be clear, i have redesigned my punties three times since I started making them, they havent all been made from the chromoly)

Chromoly will rust a little, just like your shears, jacks, tags, tweezers etc....I like it cause it adds a grip. A dash of wd40 or oil, tape, bluing, paint....there are lots of ways to deal with the rust if it bothers you. IMO the stiffness and weight advantages balanced with cost are well worth the minor rust issue.

You can just use a chunk of almost any steel to make a ghetto punty. Solids get much hotter than tubing. And they're heavy. My tools are optimized in every way I can. We currently offer 5 or so different styles for different purposes and I can do custom as well. You pay for it but, really, its not much and it does pay for itself in glass savings quite quickly. If your interested in one, Cornerstone has some in stock or you can pm or call me.

Sorry in advance if I disappear from this thread, I am starting a monster project this week....

[obscure_shadow]

i like to use them for doing twists because they wont twist no matter how hot you get them but a glass punti will so you can bring the twist right up to the punti that way

[Number Three]

Ive never used these or seen them used. it's be great if someone could post a pic on how they are used. . .

[playa00]

from the book i have read it says using a stainless punt works well with molten glass to dip into the kiln and build a gather on the end for blowing out a bubble but other than that i have not seen anyone attach tubes to a stainless rod anyone else have some tips to shed on this?

[p00pbarf]

I never heard of a PUNTIE but i have heard of an idiot

[Greymatter Glass]

I never heard of a PUNTIE but i have heard of an idiot

um.

what the dick...

[maui greenstone]

So I tried using a small stainless mandrel last night to make some little spiral twists for a jellyfish background. Produced the cleanest spirals on the inside(lensed) but the surface where I did the actual tooling took on some metal residue and made a very undesirable scuzz. Is there a way to do these twists without getting the metal residue?

[glassnewb]

^^^ Dress the tip with a thin layer of glass quick maybe?

[playa00]

tryin dipping the the stainless in a couple times before starting your pull and making a bubble that way you can pull clean with no metal residue =)

[mark206nj]

I bought some stainless steal tubing 1/2" from a scrap yard a while back. I was having trouble with the ends of my tube pulls getting too hot when using 12mm heavy wall glass blow tubes. By the time I got all the tube molten enough to get a nice clan pull, the blowtubes would be so hot that they would stretch as well. Then you are left with fat ends and only a small amount of nice tubing in the middle.

Basically I prep my tube pull in whatever fashion I am doin' at the time (stripe-n-swipe, vacstack, blow-in). I burn off one blow tube and melt the SS tube to the open hole, flip it and do the same on the other side. Cork one of the tubes and heat that bitch. You can really get the glass soupy hot while still having the blowtubes that are very solid. The only problems that I have had were on really big pulls. By the time I did the pull and it stiffened up enough to heat the center and diamond shear in half, the ends would cool enough to break free. But if you pull down to below 25mm, you can just bench cool the entire pull. When it is cool, score and break to your liking. If it has sparkly colors, I'll run it through an annealing cycle or lay them in the kiln to warm before I put them directly into the flame. Worked wonder for my tube pulls and I've got a lot less waste at the ends now.


Of course, you could always use 25mm heavy wall glass as your blowtubes like Eusheen.

[jayglass27]

Wow a must try !

[hnk]

As blow tubes are sweet tools. And eush does 75x5 vac stacks and he pulls them out with his feet. Cool shit to watch

[GhostWorks]

Dustin revere uses a metal below tube in his recent mini tube video. I imagine it would be relatively the same as a metal punty.

[Simian]

I used a set of custom metal handles I had made for me by Spiral Arts in Seattle Washington. Single best investment ever as far as my milli work goes.

[JBob]

i use stainless steel blowtubes as punties for boro...i think they hold better then the rods and leave a lesser scar. i pull stringers and smaller millis with stainless steel blowtube/punties, open holes with them easily too. im sure there are a ton of great uses.

[LooseSeal Baller]

+1 ghostworks for reviving this old thread. some good info on that first page...

[istandalone24/7]

Dustin revere uses a metal below tube in his recent mini tube video. I imagine it would be relatively the same as a metal punty.

the metal blowtubes are so much easier to do a solid color blow out with. even h/w blowtube gets floppy when trying to blow out a big solid gather. smaller ones are hard to find though.....i think arrow springs had them.

[hashmasta-kut]

i believe thats a good reason for them, but if you want to do solid color blowouts off of boro tubing, just make a big fat constriction at the end, helps immensely.

[istandalone24/7]

facepalm. why is it that the shit that makes the most sense i never think of? lmao..thanks for the tip, i will try that for sure!

[somewhere]

Brake lines from the auto parts store was something we discovered early on. You can buy them in stainless steel and the small flared end can be useful.

[LarryC]

Anyone using stainless punties for finishing marbles? Been making them for almost 3 years and I still feel like my punties could be more consistent. Will these help?

[dustyg]

Not for finishing - the final punty is always glass - but every punty before that is stainless. If you've got a grinder you can cut the steel and finish the ends with, you can buy an 1/8" welding rod for less than a buck and you're in business, so it's worth trying, at least.

[istandalone24/7]

idk if 1/8" is enough diameter to handle the 2" + mibs that LarryC makes. i'd get 1/4" anyway. maybe 3/16. the 1/8 would be very floppy with a big mib on it.

[dustyg]

That's true. 1/8" is really hard to spin if something that size gets off center, too - you need a larger diameter to make the torque work in your favor. Also, you might consider making a marble around the end of a rod dipped in bead release, then taking it off, cleaning it, and gluing it the end, for a counter-weighted mandrel.

[istandalone24/7]

good idea!! when i use a "new" handle for a mib, whatever chunk is left on the large handle is quickly melted smooth for a counter balance. works great.

[brads]

Stainless punties and blowpipes are standard practice in furnace glass. Shrinking them down for lampwrking makes perfect sense and some people, including myself, have been using small stainless punties/pipes for certain things for decades. As metals go, stainless is a lousy conductor of heat, which is an advantage in this instance.

Although I've never tried Sky's brake line suggestion, I like the sound of it. Simple and easy to find. But if you don't go that route and have the option to choose your steel, go with 300 series stainless, not 400. It's both more heat resistant and rust resistant than 400 series. 304, 310, and 316 are the typical choices., with 304 usually the easiest to find, and the other two more heat resistant.

For most lampwork sized things, 1/4" to 1/2" diameter handles are pretty comfortable to turn, and sturdy even with something relatively heavy on the end, with 1/4" probably be the best choice for most people, depending on the work being done.

Brad

[LarryC]

Yes. For the bigger marbles I like large rods and punties. For my smaller ones I use 12mm punties and for 2.25" and up I use 15mm - 20mm. I also slightly flare the tops near the contact point. They hold the heat longer that way.