I'm So Stoked!

[Dragonharper]

My first order from ABR is on the FedEx truck and will be delivered Tomorrow. Spent the day at the Corning Museum of Glass, very inspiring, last time I was there was the mid '70s. Will place order for kiln Tomorrow.:bounce

[menty666]

Welcome to the addiction :)

[naughty pirate wench]

stoked for ya! have fun!

[Dragonharper]

Thanks Menty and Christine. Kiln is ordered and will be here before the weekend. Can't wait t get home and play with all of my new toys!:bouncy:

[naughty pirate wench]

Y'know...once your torch is hooked up, there's stuff you can do before the kiln arrives - you can practice pulling stringers, making twisties, and pulling points on tubing (not that I know ANYTHING about pulling points, LOL). You DO have fantastic ventilation and appropriate eye protection in place already, right?

[Dragonharper]

Yes, I do have I protection and good ventilation. In fact the ventilation is so strong it's pulling my tip torch flame sideways about 20 degrees. I decided to work with COE 104 to start with, I'll post pics of my first attempt last night and the utter failure it became, I'll start a progress thread in the Pics forum. Tonight, I'm going to do some of the beginner exercises that Bandhu recommends in his book. I tried to make a flower implosion marble, it was going fine until I tried to save my 12mm rod from breaking and I let the marble cool to much and it exploded when I put it back into the flame. I'm surprised at how little heat it actually takes to make the glass move.

[MPGB]

The glass flows under lower temp because it's Coe 104. You have to keep it hot which is why it exploded. If you let it cool down too much slowly introduce it back into the flame.

[Dragonharper]

Thanks, I've been playing with bottle glass which is about COE 90, and this is even softer. The Didy's make telling the temp of the glass more difficult as the sodium flare is almost non existent. I'll get the hang of it though, I've learned to weld, solder uphill, braze uphill, program computers, and play several musical instruments, this is just one more skill to learn and hone.

[kbinkster]

It is a challenge, for sure. I actually like having didymium lenses to block out the soda flare because it lets me see the glass and the color changes better than without it. The soda flare gets in the way of that.

Be aware that different colors of glass will change to different colors as they get hotter. For instance, black will start to go orange and then red while white will go clear when it is molten.

[Dragonharper]

I'm not saying I don't want the did's, but I've got remember that Bandhu's book is talking about boro rods and not COE 104! By the time I get a nice orange glow it's almost starting to drip. I noticed that colors change, I almost panicked when my colored rod, Effetre Coral Peach Persimmon turned black in the flame, it whent back after it cooled, I thought I had burned it. Lots to learn, I can see I'm going to go through quite a few pounds of clear before I get used to how it behaves. Kiln arrives Tomorrow so Tonight I think I'll just practice bending and joining rods.
:)

[Dragonharper]

So did some more playing tonight, seems to me the biggest thing(s) to learn is what size and texture of flame to use and where and how much to heat the glass. Seems to me that I want to use the smallest flame that will get the job done.

[kbinkster]

You want to make sure that the flame is large enough and has enough drive that you get the point of ignition off the face of your torch. If you run too small a flame or too soft a flame, you will overheat the torch. Go by your candles - the little jets of flame. Those tell the story. If you are wanting to run a small flame where the candles are only about 1/4" long or shorter, then they need to be all blue with no white/yellow tips. When you run them out a little longer, you can have more white/yellow tips on the ends of them. For soft glass, 3/8" is a pretty standard candle length for most applications. The tips on the ends would be about 1-2 mm for a neutral flame, longer for a reduction flame, and not there for an oxidizing flame.

[MPGB]

I don't think it was mentioned but what torch are you using?

[Dragonharper]

Thanks Kim.
MPGB, I've got a used Nortel Rocket. If I'm not mistaken the centerfire is a Minor. It may be too much torch but if I keep the outer ring off...

[kbinkster]

That's a good torch to grow into.:) While you're running the center fire, you can crack open the outer fire oxygen just a little bit and stabilize your inner fire. I do that with my Phantom and it makes a better flame than a stand-alone Lynx, IMHO.

[Dragonharper]

The tips on the ends would be about 1-2 mm for a neutral flame, longer for a reduction flame, and not there for an oxidizing flame.

Wow that small, no wonder I've been melting everything the flame touches. The only thing my documentation that I received from Nortel says is not to let the end of the torch glow red. I think also that I have my torch too flat, almost parallel with the bench, I'll try tilting it up more. Maybe I'll have some "turtles" from Bandhu's book to post photo's of Tomorrow. Kim, thanks for everything, I see why everyone here and at LE think you are the Bee's Knees, it's becuase it's true.

[chayes]

Hey man if your working 104 you might wanna give devardi a try http://devardiglass.com/ It's a great glass and is a bit stiffer than other 104 glasses. I think it's a really fun glass to work with and they have some colors the other 104s don't have.

Also Frantz art glass and Arrow springs have excellent pricing on 104. Frantz has some great monthly sales.