I didn't die... I've been in hiding!

[The Cheese]

Some new stuff. Finally got a w/r to work right for me. I've been playing with fume and then raking that a bit, but decided to try another color one the other night.

Been playing with pendants and what I guess you could call sun catchers. Nice break from pipes and I've learned a bit playing with the stuff, so it's all good.

And as always, thanks for the tips. They've helped out quite a bit.

[Lurch]

The purple and fume W&R looks nice. Keep it up!

[Swampy]

The two round pendants look the best, from what I can see.

A friend always speaks to the heart, I hope you agree.

and so I mean it in the nicest possible when I say you have to sort them loops out mang.

Looks like you got the hang of it on the two big round ones but I like them because of the colour swirl effect. Nice, my missus would like to wear that. But the drops, you know what you need to do, right?

Jim Smircich does a great demo on loops (it's soft glass but good demo) in his bead dvd, volume two.

Them tobacco-use-only things look good too :-)

[Frankie Hess]

Good progress!

[The Cheese]

Thanks all.

Yeah, I'm working on those loops. They've gotten a lot better since I started, but... I thought that the little tear drop things' loops were ok, just kinda going with the flow on those - something small and flowing with the piece. What would be your suggestion Swampy? An no offense taken. Little easier on some than it is on others. I'd like to get that nice wide, fat and flat look. I'll have to join the gldg library and get some of those vids. A couple folks on here have offered up lessons - just not the right time for po' ass me. Gotta wait 'til I get my po man's check from Mr. Douce, I mean bush...

My wife took the two swirls to work today and a few of the ladies wanted some. So it's all good. I made a couple more tonight. Much better looking now that I'm starting to get the hang of it. I just took and laid some color on the end of a 10mm rod and cooked it in - then swirled it - then cooked it down like a mib - then stuck a 6m punty on the side and flatted the piece out a bit - then pulled the 6m into a loop (if you want to call it that!). The 10m left a decent size "window" I guess you could call it. Kinda looking in towards the back. I'll get some more up tomorrow.

Did another purple/white/blue w/r tonight as well. Turned out pretty good so far. We'll see in the mornin'. Glad you liked it Lurch. My wife did too - she's pissed that I won't let her have it. She keeps getting all my pieces dirty! Can't really Formula 420 them out and sell 'em. That stuff has got to leave something behind that I wouldn't want to sell anyone. Someone said that with my torch I probably wouldn't really be able to turn out any really decent prodo in a reasonable amount of time - they're right. The w/r are taking about 45 mins but are coming out pretty darn thick. I'll have to save my pennies - I just don't want to get back to buying oxy again and I don't know how much bigger I could go with my two concentrators. Anyone know how well two 5lpm machines will run a mid-range or maybe a major/minor? I'd like to step up in the GTT line but again, the cost... ehh...

Thanks again folks. Your encouragement keeps me pumpin' along!

[beachglass]

nice...i like the pendants with the twisted colour inside the clear. try fuming inside a tube, laying a couple clear dots then collapsing it right down to solid and twist for a spacey looking version. looks great backed with cobalt or black

keep at er! oh ya and 45 mins isnt too bad especially if you have a small torch. dont bother with midrange or majors if ur gonna upgrade...redmax all the way :)

[The Cheese]

Thanks beachglass. But will the redmax run on 9lpm? There was a thread over at LE that had torch oxy/fuel consumptions, but I can't find it for the life of me.

[CripSkillz]

hey if your W and R are commin out thick at 45 min id say your fine,, most all the pices i make take over 30 min, and i can melt big ass 50x3 tube with my lil torch so i guess it jsut depends how long ya wana sit in front of the fire, but really small torches work fine im gettin faster all the time and as long as it melts your good to go ..

[Swampy]

I suggest just practice, mate.

This what I do;

When the pendant is done, ball up an 8mm clear rod for the bail and attach it.

Let it cool a wee bit then pull out the bail at 90 degrees away from you, then curl it round and touch it down to the back.

Turn the flame way down.

Now melt in the join at the back.

Then heat up the whole bail. Evenly.

Hang it down or point it up, let it flop about but don't let it close up the hole!

I use a 6mm gouging rod files to a four-sided point and use that to keep the hole open/shape the bail.

My mistakes at first were 'oh fuck it's gonna close up' -then rush to get it shaped and before you know it's time to pull the lump off and start again heh heh

So what I did was just practice putting bail after bail on a piece of 12mm rod. Just keep ripping it off and start again till it's right.

It's amazing how long you can keep it hot and not close up. Try it.

[jethro]

Yep yep what he said.

also pull the loop longer and thinner than you want it so it has some room to melt down/in without closing.

A pencil reamer or 1/4 graphite rod is good to keep the hole open too. Sharpen it with a pencil sharpener. (don't use your girl's eye makeup sharpener thing for some reason it makes em angry)

And if it ends up a lil crooked you can use the smooth part of your tweezers to gently grab it and straighten it out.

[beachglass]

Thanks beachglass. But will the redmax run on 9lpm? There was a thread over at LE that had torch oxy/fuel consumptions, but I can't find it for the life of me.

i really couldnt say, but if the major will the redmax will for sure....its definetely easier on the gas than the maj

for loops i just weld a piece of 5 mil on, the rip off the rod about 1 inch down. heat the whole length and curl it back. weld on then heat the whole loop to thicken it up a bit and shape

[Swampy]

^Yeah that is another bail type I want to learn yet.

This pendant here my friend Irja gave me (see it here? No? well look harder then!) has the bail made from a 4mm twisty stringer.

Neat how she got the stringer to round over without distortion but she has a really fine hand for detail anyway.

[Galaxie Glass]

makin loops is actually the easy part...Zilla showed me this back in the day.
! when the pendant is still on a punty ( bottom side) attach a 4mm rod or twistie.
2) heating the 4mm rod 'bout 2" out and fire cut off.
3) get it hot enough to move (no heat at the pendant only the loop !)
4) allow it to droop to you (backside) grap with Lrg. tweezers and twist to attach at base of loop.
5) with a small flame melt it together and ream with the tweezers.
6) finally slight heating to re-straighten the loop and your done.
7) hold the pendant below the bench to see any radiant heat <when its stopped glowing orange) hold the loop by the tweezers and crack off the punty and fire polish and toss that sucker into the kiln.

[Galaxie Glass]

I make bucket loads of mushy and doing them repeatedly has helped alot with the loops. The mushy's average me 'bout 6 min each....start to finish.

[The Cheese]

Got lots of good shit to try out now! Thanks for the variety folks. Got some more pics comin' tomorrow. Found that "The tech is cheap" tutorial over on GA. Tried that a couple times tonight. One w/w, one spiral. A pipe too, of course. he he...

later.

[Swampy]

Very well then that's good you shared and learned now don't forget to keep putting it back okay :-)

Peace and Blessings

[The Cheese]

Will do, as soon as I am able to find someone who knows less than I do.

Here's a couple that I did last night. The first one didn't look nearly as wig waggy on the front as it did on the back. I don't think that it melted down evenly and ended up rolling over itself a little. Wife liked it though. The spiral ended up being a little small, but I liked it overall. Bails are a little better. After I hacked up a couple more tonight, I think I see what I'm doing wrong. Tomorrow is another day.

I was fairly happy with the way the pipe turned out. When I put it on the blow tube, I fumed it. Medium coat, nothing overly heavy, but not the smallest amount either. I started seeing little dark spots in it. What's that? But after w/r it, it all blends in and looks alright. Probably end up looking pretty cool after some use. It's white/ozone/fune and raked with 3mm clear.

With the exception of the unknown orange, I used boro bars. The blue is called ozone. Doesn't look nearly as dark as I had expected. The price is right though and it's teaching me to pull cane. I end up twisting it down instead of pulling it. Anyone else do that or am I a nut? Pretty solid colors though. The purple seems to be a little touchy and bubbles a lot easier than the others. I also bought some "bing cherry". Reddish brown color. Must have killed it though as it turned green in the flame. Oops! Kinda cool looking though.

Ok, I'm done rambling now...

[The Cheese]

Thanks to Travis Weber for the tut... (http://www.glassartists.org/Gal18238_TECHNIQUE_IS_CHEAP_.asp)

[jethro]

The lil dark spots might be silver splatter from fuming....looks good sometimes...and sometimes it doesnt.

lookin damn good on those last few.

[Galaxie Glass]

the penndant loop is right on...nice wig wag too

[The Cheese]

Thanks. Now I just need to get it sorted out so that the colors quit overlapping eachother when I'm cooking it down. They seem to get all mushed up and the w/w doesn't show through on the side it matters on!

Made a cane of green thumb (acme) and white boro bar today in honor of our local learning institution. Not that I watch sports. I could barely tell you the difference between a touchdown and a layup. I just have a limited supply of color is all. Get them up when I get home from work.

Later...

[The Cheese]

Some stuff from yesterday. Got a shitload of this green/white cane left. Hopefully I'll get these down by the time it's all gone! Noticed with these that the back of the pendant seems to be sinking in. After baking the shit out of it to get the lens rounded out, the punty doesn't want to come off the back and the center spot where the punty is seems to sink in quite a bit on a couple of them. Should I not put one on the back but rather the side where I'm going to bake on a loop anyhow?

And, of course, a pipe.

[beachglass]

nice...some girl will freak when she sees that pipe lol. for the punty thing im not sure what to tell ya...what size rod do you make the pendants on?

[The Cheese]

He he he... Yeah, my wife picked out colors. She's the creative one of us. I just can't get her on the torch. She'd rather make fondant cakes, which is pretty cool too. If I picked them out, I'd end up with red and green and pink or something like that.

Using all schott artistic. 10mm and 6mm punty. I use 3mm for raking. I was going to try and use the 3mm to do some premade loops. Gotta get a set of mandrels. Maybe that'll help. Thinking they'd be a little too fragile though.

[jethro]

When you tear the rod off of the face spin off/pull off with tweezers any "extra" glass on the lens before you melt it in, And only heat the face so it doesnt sag back and get your punty too hot.

Maybe you need to make your pendants thicker? start with a bigger gather,or just use some 16 mil? Dont really know what the issue is just trying to throw something out there.

[beachglass]

ya maybe try some bigger rod to get rid of the issue, but also using a tiny laser when melting in that lens should help too.

when youre gonna punty onto the back of the pendant, hold it under your bench in the dark until you see the orange glow go away, then punty on. this should ensure the back is nice and cool when you go to hit the front

[The Cheese]

Sounds good folks. I'll have to get some bigger rod, until then, I'll just have to size down my flame a bit.

Thanks!