Preheat or not to preheat

[menty666]

I have a perfume bottle I'm working on and I put it in to anneal once I finished up the body, but before I take it off the point.

My question...does it make it sense to bring it up to temp before I do the separation, bringing it out of the kiln and putting it onto flame flashed hot fingers, but risking thermal shock? Or does it make more sense to lock it in the fingers and go gentle on the neck until it's up to temp, trying to keep it horizontal (or at least favoring the handle end) to minimize heat travel?

This is it's current state:
http://munkinarts.com/images/charity/fchpbottle_wip.jpg

It's coming out nice and I'd rather not trash it by doing something I could have avoided, ya know?

[Kool]

You can do it either way, I would just suggest that when you first put it in the flame, direct your heat on the clear glass and not the worked piece. Once that is hot, then work your way over toward the worked glass. Since you have those unmelted nubs on the end there, you don't want to just hit them suddenly.

[menty666]

Thanks! Luckily the nubs are loss glass anyway, but ideally I'm trying to target my flame cut about 1/2" in from the clear/color border. I'm trying to do it similarly to Suellen Fowler in her video :D

[bzglass]

play it safe put it in the kiln and let it warm up. How can that hurt anything??

[lucidvisions]

I like the kiln also, I mean why not?

Josh

[lucidvisions]

PS the color you used looks really good, I love the earthyness to it. What color is it?

Josh

[bzglass]

^^ yeah, when you are finished with it, you should take pictures of it again in the same spot. The fall colors in the background really set your piece off.

[menty666]

PS the color you used looks really good, I love the earthyness to it. What color is it?

Josh

Thanks folks. It's Elvis Orange over Aurora. I did kind of a zig-zag smear before blowing it out.

I'm just kind of bummed; there are blues on it that don't come out in the picture.


Off to finish (should be up to temp by now)

[menty666]

It came out nice, thanks for the advice everyone!

http://munkinarts.com/fun/P1060963.jpg

edit:

Two nicer photos:

http://munkinarts.com/images/charity/MA_FCHP_2009_001.jpg

http://munkinarts.com/images/charity/MA_FCHP_2009_002.jpg

[jes]

Cool, I hope U try more if it was fun for U people r gonna love them specially. I wanna try more too now, thanks for posting your learning process its inspirational for me, peace

[Mecha]

Success!

Looks good man.

[goldmanglass]

flame anneal! save some time and get good at using a warm in flame. such an invaluable skill.

[J Howard]

glad it worked. aurora is an exotic color (~10% metal)- they're really cracky sometimes- i'd kiln those for sure, or at least keep them from cooling

bbq tongs with kevlar glove fingers on them work nice btw (less shocking than grabbers)