Boro furnace fun

[themoch]

This weekend I took a few friends up to Wonka's place in Hilliards PA. We rented out the use of the place so we could get at the boro furnace.

I learned so much about pulling tube it was sick. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit spendy in terms of glass, but we walked out of there with about 14 lbs of glass tube and rod each (times 5 people is 70lbs of color). Totally awesome weekend.

I want to thank Tom for having us there, and Glass Alchemy for walking us through the use of their Cauldron boro oven.

I uploaded a bunch of pics to facebook as a public album so you can see those here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100217076523792.2579985.9101065&l=a79a001f3c

video of pulling some tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXbu9aSw8_o

video of making 36lbs of clear cullet in under 5 min... also me being a whiney bitch about not wanting to hurt myself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E0sabUjr1c

[Mecha]

Damn, that does look fun.

Boro furnace bassalope this year?

[IndiePendent]

Nice pics Andrew! My god that looks fun!


Oh and Mecha... ALL HAIL THE BASSALOPE!

[themoch]

i'm not going to gloat... but i did pull a 6 ft whalebone out of that thing.

[IndiePendent]

Hmmm whalelope? Not the same... doesnt roll off.the tounge...

[Abe Fleishman]

Looks good. Next time cut ther clear on a wet saw, this will help cut down on the amount of air when melting. Cut the big rod into 2-6 inch chunks and they will melt almost air free glass. Just a thought. Looks like you guys had fun and got some sick tubing.
Abe

[IndiePendent]

Abe does the saw marks from the wet saw make a difference on the clear after it fines out, cause most of the air seems to workcits way out so long as you melt everything slowly and consistently? What size rod do you usually use for cullet?

[Abe Fleishman]

For melting at home I would use 44mil rod. If you cut the rods with a wet saw just make sure you wash off any dust and you are fine. If you also pre heat the rods in the kiln, you will cut down on the melt time.
Abe

[Dom]

Or maybe just score and snap that would be much cleaner. Plus much quicker than wet cutting it all.

[themoch]

i'd like to see someone score/snap or saw cut 35lbs of 26 or 44 in under 5 min.

[JPlank]

Awsome pictures and videos, it looks so fun pulling out huge gathers from a cruicible like that. dope

[sunray]

Was down at the shop last night watching them pull tubing and
they had almost emptied their 90lb crucible of clear and I saw James go to the
wet saw and cut up a bucket of large rod to fill the pot again.. So the cut rod works good for them
Looks like you guys had a fun day!

[Julian]

Awesome, thanks for posting the photos!

Definitely looking forward to lots of furnace fun at AGI this fall. Oh, that's only like 7 weeks!

[Swampy]

That was fucking cool. You lucky, lucky bastard.

[Kevin Bumble]

score snap with minutes 32-44 i got that, jaws tool and to the floor, nice lil peices like cake (don't ask how i fig it out)

[fUmEsNiFfEr]

Cool pics man! That looks like tons o' fun!! +Rep