working with glass on glass

[Fire on the mountain]

are there any tips or tricks anyone is willing to share? you can put them in the kiln right? is there a limit on time they can spend in the kiln? how close can you get to the ground glass before you burn it out...

[Chris Juedemann]

What are you talking about?

Chris

[Kalera]

I'm unclear on this also. Can you describe the process you're talking about in a little more detail?

[baggedchevys]

i think they are talking about the glass on glass joints for tubes and such. as in how close can you get to the ground section of the joint before you turn it to shit... i have no exp with glass on glass but i have put sandblaseted piece in the kiln at 1000 deg before to see what happens and they came out the same as they went in. i would think that as long as you dont directly put it into your flame so it doesent start to flmae polish the joint you should be fine. but once again i have no exp with them. they seem relativly cheap but a set and screw around and test the limits of it and see how much it takes before you end up with a pos

[Natedizzle]

They are fine in the kiln indefinately. The ground surface does polish smooth, so be careful, I like to tilt my torch so it is angled away from the inside of the joint. if you do polish the surface smooth, you can use cerium oxide to grind them again. Each joint is slightly different, so once you have a the piece finished, grind the joints together a little with some cerium oxide in order to make them fit each other better without any wobble.

the simplest way to use them is to get a piece of thin kevlar, or some carbon paper and hold the female end using a male end and vice versa. if you don't put something between the two, they will stick and seal forever. Herbert Arnold makes some sick tools to work with them, but they take forever to order from germany. mine took close to two months.

have fun.

Nathan

[Royal]

attach a female to a blowtube for better support then stick the male in your female and do the weld. the ground part is sensitive to the flame and will go smooth with direct contact.

[smutboy420]

I think that is what hes asking basicly is how to work with them and is there any issues with putting them in the kiln and messing up the joint part its self.

Yep, You can kiln them with out worry as lomg as you don't get it hot enought to slump the glass or any thing there should be no issues about sticken them in the kiln to annel them when you are done with a pcs.

When working with them. You can get pretty close to the joint its self with out friging it up. Again as long as you dont hit the part thats frosted enought to melt the glass in that part or deform it in any way you are good to go. I have gone Right up to 1-2 mm from the joints on bing slides.

Get your self a few extras to play around with and a few extra to make tools you need for blowing ground joints right.

For an example lets say you want to blow a pcs out of a 14/20 female joint. You use a 14/20 male joint as your blow handle. If the joint you are using is too short to use as a handle you can attach a section of 12 mm tube to it to make it longer. (I have a set I keep now as tools.)

To use it you can wrap a pcs of paper around your male joint and then stick it inside your female joint. (some peep use heat proof tapeing for this but I find reg tissue works well it just burns up and leaves some ash.) almum foil will also work. but with paper or what ever in the joint you can push them together real tight. So they won't come apart while you are blowing them. But you can still get them apart when you are done. Any paper that gets stuck in to joint burns right out when it goes threw the kiln.

To blow a pcs using a male side of a joint you just use a female joint as your blow handle.

The only thing you realy need to be carful about is cracking and melting any part of the frosted glass.
If you are going to go close to the joint don't be afraid to get the joint warm so it don't crack just don't get it hot enought to melt. Don't even worry if the paper starts to char and burn it will still leave and ash layer keeping your joints from sticking together.

[slinger]

nate dizz, not sure why you think you need carbon paper or kevlar btw the joints, i have never used that and my joints dont stick together forever....

im curious to see what tools you got from HA to work with them, could you post some pics.....

[$$$$$$$]

me either

[Natedizzle]

I'll take some pics of the tools today...

I have had several joints stick together without any direct flame contact while working. Three were on big tubes with thick i/o sections and ended up cracking because I had to rip off a stuck seal at the last minute. a couple more were on bubs where I was recessing the joint, and the tissue paper I had burned away just on the top edge, and the two sides stuck firmly. these problems wasted many hours, and several finished pieces/pairs of joints, so I went looking for a better way. My lathe is an old beth, so if I seal the joint on first, and attach the sections after, the un even weight of the joint ovals the worked sections.


Nathan

[somewhere]

In the scientific world most joints are wraped with ceramic tape to keep from sticking wile working the piece together. I do it out of habit maybe it's not needed but I can say I never sieze joints together.

[slinger]

heh...... any joints i have had stick together while working came apart the next day once the kiln was cooled down.

when i make gong bubs i leave a male with a closed off end stuck in the female while i work, and i pull it out the next day. i find if i have a male in a female and i put it in the kiln, the pieces will usually be stuck til the kiln is cooled down.

when im just making male bowl pieces, i use the female to hold the male, and i twist them together good until they "lock". i hate it when they come unlocked before you are done with your bowl. then once im finished with my bowl, i untwist them apart, and it almost always works. if not it will come out the next day.

the only time ive had them stuck forever, was because i got it too hot too close to the joint, and i melted em together too some extent.

[Natedizzle]

http://www.glasspipes.org/Images/FullSize/000073000/Img73267_HerbertArnoldTools_.jpg
http://www.glasspipes.org/Images/FullSize/000073000/Img73268_HerbertArnoldTools_.jpg
http://www.glasspipes.org/Images/FullSize/000073000/Img73270_HerbertArnoldTools_.jpg
http://www.glasspipes.org/Images/FullSize/000073000/Img73269_HerbertArnoldTools_.jpg

I have had a few come apart as they cooled, but the ones that didn't pissed me off too much to want to deal with it again. I wish I had your luck with them...

Nathan

[$$$$$$$]

those are the shit!!!

[kankoon52]

where can you buy just groung glass joints?

[Royal]

those tools are fuckin rad. hernert arnold makes some crazy tools for ground joints too.

[slinger]

what you are saying nate about the joints getting stuck without you affecting them with heat doesnt make sense to me....

first off if you had problems doing a recessed seal, i dont know how or why you even had a male in the female if you are recessing the joint, that confuses the hell out of me, you shouldnt need nor want to use a male piece to seal in the female like that, at least not how i do it.....

then overall, the idea that you have had joints stick for good without heat welding them together, you must have had some bad luck, cuz i have done dozens of glass on glass bowls and a bunch of bubs and i literally twist the joints together so i can get them as stuck as i possiblly can and they still come undone once cooled....

when you had the joints stick on your tube, have you ever left it in there until it was cool the next day and then have it still stick? or do you get upset that its stuck while you are working the piece and rip off the seal before it gets to that point??

those arnols tools look pretty dope, do they hold the joint well when needed? what are then ends metal or graphite or what? thanx for the pics!

[$$$$$$$]

how do you do your recessed seals slinger? i haven't done any but i'm down to fuck with it..

[somewhere]

I have ripped many a stuck joint off of lab ware. It does happen and there are several tricks to free them. My favorite is soaking in coke or really any type of soda water. Then there's always the freezer trick but still some just stick because of the tight tolerence or a liitle debri that siezes it together. :contempla

[slinger]

freezer trick? i was talking to a local scientific glass blower and he said freezing is the wrong way to go, the outer part gets cold first and contracts, gripping even further, his advice was to roll the joint above the flame giving it a lil heat, like how when you run hot water on a tight peanut butter lid, it causes the outer part to expand and loosen its grip a lil.... i dunno, works for me.....

adam, in terms of recessing a gong female piece, i do it pretty much like a reg bubbler seal, where i open up the top of the can to the exact size so the rim of the female fits in but just barely so it wont fall thru, and then carefully seal it up without focusing flame into the joint, and if you give the top a lil puff, make sure it doesnt puff in the lip and decrease the diameter of the opening, i put my bowl push in the top hole to give pressure for a slight puff, ive only tried it twice, first time was butter, second time i fucked it up......

[Natedizzle]

first off if you had problems doing a recessed seal, i dont know how or why you even had a male in the female if you are recessing the joint, that confuses the hell out of me, you shouldnt need nor want to use a male piece to seal in the female like that, at least not how i do it.....

you're right... i shouldn't have done it, but at the time I tried a few experiments... Once I was making sure that the downstem was straight and stuck the male side in and immediately it was stuck. I figured it would come out when it cooled, but it never did..


[/QUOTE]
then overall, the idea that you have had joints stick for good without heat welding them together, you must have had some bad luck, cuz i have done dozens of glass on glass bowls and a bunch of bubs and i literally twist the joints together so i can get them as stuck as i possiblly can and they still come undone once cooled....[/QUOTE]

I have never had a bowl stick forever while I was making a bowl... The issue I have is sealing the female side... recessed or not. I haven't used them too much on bubs, but on tubes I have had the handle permanantly seal into the female for no logical reason... I'm not saying that There is no chance a flame hit the wrong spot for a second... but I didn't notice it, and the joints weren't polished anywhere... :puzzled:


[/QUOTE]
when you had the joints stick on your tube, have you ever left it in there until it was cool the next day and then have it still stick? or do you get upset that its stuck while you are working the piece and rip off the seal before it gets to that point??[/QUOTE]

Yeah I have left them in there before until the next day, and one came out, but the rest were not budging... Others I have gotten frustrated and pulled off but those never came apart even when cool.

[/QUOTE]
those arnols tools look pretty dope, do they hold the joint well when needed? what are then ends metal or graphite or what? thanx for the pics![/QUOTE]

the ends are graphite backed by metal. They hold the joint really well, and come off when you tug a little. the only thing I worry about is dropping them, I'm not sure the graphite will survive a sizeable fall. the graphite also has a seam to allow for expansion/contraction as you are working.


[/QUOTE]

[niall]

Where does one find moulds and tools for actually making ground glass joints? What sort of grinder would you have to use on a female joint - I take it this requires moulded grinding tools like you'd find on a Dremel?

[slinger]

so hey nate, my final question is on technique for using cerium to re grind up a joint, just wondering how you went about it.

word, thanx dog.

[Natedizzle]

Sling- get the male joint wet, and dip it in the cerium so it is evenly coated like a layer of powder, and wet the inside of the female, and grind the two together horizontally so the grains don't move as much. if you have issues getting the cerium to stick, try mixing it with a little water, and apply it to the joint. I was also told that you can mix it with a little toothpaste but I never tried it.

Hope this helps a little... Nathan

[slinger]

nice one, thanx nate!

[somewhere]

Cerium oxide is used for polishing. Silicon carbide or aluminum oxide are the two common abbrasives used to regrind joints. You of course don't want to use a 70grit more like a 220grit would do the job nicely.

The freezer trick:
Yes cold freeze then warm water on the outside of the joint. I was showed this trick from an oldtimer it's not like I made it up LOL.

[Natedizzle]

NP slinger ...

good to know I thought aluminum oxide was for polishing too, I have some for my lap... I just talked to the guy I got my cerium from and he said he prefers coarse cerium because it leaves a slightly softer grind... All I know is my little bag has cerium written on it and it is like a really dark brown, almost black, what does that sound like somewhere?

Nathan

[$$$$$$$]

heroin

[Natedizzle]

hahahaha

[natedog]

anyone used the colbalt or amber fittings yet

[slinger]

id like to check out the cobalt or amber fittings!!!

sorry somewhere, i missed that part about the hot water after freezing it, sounds like a good trick, my bad.....

[Groundjoints.com]

I have some pictures of stuff made on our prototype blue fittings. We are in the process of getting some green and amber 14/23's made. Hit me up if you want to see the pics.

Adam

[slinger]

hell yea we want pics!!! holla!!!

[somewhere]

Some cerium contains tramp iron the cheaper the cerium the more trash in it. It still works but you probably won't get as good of a polish as the light colored stuff. That is just my guess. I have bought cerium and have seen the difference but really never worried about it. As far as leaving a softer grind I only use cerium on cork or felt and it's the last step in the final polish.

pics? I want the real deal! Send some of those colored joints down this way.
LOL serious I want some as soon as they become available.

[Fire on the mountain]

adam, you never told me about blue and green fittings! that sounds dope...im in

[Groundjoints.com]

The colored joints are still in production. I have attached some pics although they are difficult to see. We should have the colored fittings within a month or so.


Adam

[slacker23]

how much are blue fittings, and do you have females and transistions

[Groundjoints.com]

The first 2 colors that should come in will be green and amber. No transitions yet, and pricing is tbd.

Adam

[GGB]

Now thats Dope!! Colour GonG.. nice work..How long before they are availible?