Thebes
03-24-2014, 12:30 PM
I'm here thinking of getting into glass.
I am in the process of setting up a small jewelry casting studio and have always wanted to blow glass. I worked a bit of lab glass back in school ages ago.
Anyway, a friend of mine and active member of my small neo-pagan church also is interested in glass blowing and until he started talking about it I hadn't realized that I will already have much of the studio kit needed (kiln, oxy, propane, ventilation, etc) to get started.
I would probably work boro beads and spoons. I might actually be more interested in beads, I've often done beaded jewelry in the past and years ago purchased many lampworked glass beads- though I believe those were soft glass. Even if I can't make good spoons I know that I could barter and sell useable practice work locally, and I am thinking that should pay back the studio additions of a small glass torch, marver, basic tools and some glass over a year's time. There is tremendous local demand and some people are too poor to buy in town and so will come to me for wholesale prices or barter on stuff thats a bit ugly. Or so I try reasoning.
Yesterday I also got the idea that I might be able to use a smaller glass torch, say a GTT Lynx, as a casting torch which I still need for my jewelry studio. I note that the Meco Midget (or little torch if I find a good used deal) are often used as glass hand torches. I'm curious if anyone has melted a crucible of bronze or silver using a glass torch? I would probably put fire brick around the crucible to help maintain a better reduction environment and am looking at 2 to 16 ounce metal pours, well beyond the heat abilities of at least the little torch... money is always a concern and I love tools that do more than one thing for me. Is this use of a boro torch practical?
I'm also interested in casting small glass items, probably figurative beads and bits for my jewelry work. I've seen graphite molds that I am 99% sure I can machine on my cnc mill, though I'd want to make a contained coolant system for dust control and there are more appropriate bits. BTW, is there a market for such custom molds?
Various things I'm researching-
As I'm offgrid (solar but have genset too) I'm considering whether to haul or make oxy (homefill and bottles)- if I go with making it, I also need pressured oxy for occasional welding work and I live at 7000 feet so I doubt a m20 would suffice well for a Lynx or similar. Of course with my genset costing 40+ cents/kwh this is mostly about hauling large tanks inside a closed vehicle "offroad" to my cabin. Also I have a hernia and health problems, moving things tanks out of my freakmobile means getting someone here to do it for me.
I'll be making my kiln, I need to be able to reach 1350F and ramp for jewelry burnout (presteaming so I only get some rather than massive amounts of soot in the kiln). I'd prefer to reach 1650F as I would like to be able to use metal clays requiring that in a kiln for the reduction vessels. I'm not sure yet if I want propane or electric, I know propane will be harder to build and control. It seems I need to run the genset anyway for ventilation and likely a oxycon/homefill... it might be best to keep it all electric.
Homebuilt lathes... I have a small cnc mill and rotary tables. I also have, thanks to my now ex-wife, a rather screwed up right wrist. This keeps me from doing a lot of things and makes me bitter when it hurts, which is often if I use it much. So I wonder to what extent I can use my cnc stuff as a glass lathe on occasion... maybe the tables turn too slow though? I worry that I will have problems hand turning rods and tubes although when I tried on my propane cookstove (softened and shaped clear boro rod? it was found with practice pipes) the motions weren't an issue. I'd like a way of making production spoons without putting the wear on my wrist... and of course lathes cost but maybe I have most of what I need if I'm creative, it would be a cute little thing but would take a couple hours to turn back into a mill for jewelry waxes because alignment is nontrivial.
Lets see, what else. Oh, with the jewelry I'm making mostly neo-pagan stuff as I'm slowly changing a small church I run into a small commune (I've lived in one for a few years). Aesthetically I like the idea of cast bronze with glass- though in my head it looks more like soft glass? I don't think I'd want to do both boro and soft at first and I want to learn boro more for spoons etc for barter and sale locally. I'm also thinking glass work would vibe with the kind of people that have been coming through, so that's another interest- teaching people involved with this a craft while building the community and a long term ecosystem of micro businesses- many of the people coming through the church have nothing, live in squats or buses or shacks, have no real skills or income, and often have health concerns of their own(I have Crohn's)- these are just the sort of people who need to learn home business skills as they've often ended up "On the Mesa" because they don't want to or can't stand being in mainstream society / town, or else society can't stand them. Many of these people's situation would be drastically bettered if they developed the skills and kit needed to earn a "McWage" from home (or more likely the broken old van in the sage behind the shack). So that's part of this, that I might use the tools and skills I acquire to teach future people coming through enough to get going on their own.
Anyway, I've degenerated to random mutterings about far off considerations, but its helping me think through this. It looks like I could add basic boro lampworking abilities to the jewelry studio I'm setting up for well under a grand, so I'm very tempted. It seems I should decide before I build my kiln, benches, vents, oxycon so I can make systems work well for both.
So, yeah, hi.
I am in the process of setting up a small jewelry casting studio and have always wanted to blow glass. I worked a bit of lab glass back in school ages ago.
Anyway, a friend of mine and active member of my small neo-pagan church also is interested in glass blowing and until he started talking about it I hadn't realized that I will already have much of the studio kit needed (kiln, oxy, propane, ventilation, etc) to get started.
I would probably work boro beads and spoons. I might actually be more interested in beads, I've often done beaded jewelry in the past and years ago purchased many lampworked glass beads- though I believe those were soft glass. Even if I can't make good spoons I know that I could barter and sell useable practice work locally, and I am thinking that should pay back the studio additions of a small glass torch, marver, basic tools and some glass over a year's time. There is tremendous local demand and some people are too poor to buy in town and so will come to me for wholesale prices or barter on stuff thats a bit ugly. Or so I try reasoning.
Yesterday I also got the idea that I might be able to use a smaller glass torch, say a GTT Lynx, as a casting torch which I still need for my jewelry studio. I note that the Meco Midget (or little torch if I find a good used deal) are often used as glass hand torches. I'm curious if anyone has melted a crucible of bronze or silver using a glass torch? I would probably put fire brick around the crucible to help maintain a better reduction environment and am looking at 2 to 16 ounce metal pours, well beyond the heat abilities of at least the little torch... money is always a concern and I love tools that do more than one thing for me. Is this use of a boro torch practical?
I'm also interested in casting small glass items, probably figurative beads and bits for my jewelry work. I've seen graphite molds that I am 99% sure I can machine on my cnc mill, though I'd want to make a contained coolant system for dust control and there are more appropriate bits. BTW, is there a market for such custom molds?
Various things I'm researching-
As I'm offgrid (solar but have genset too) I'm considering whether to haul or make oxy (homefill and bottles)- if I go with making it, I also need pressured oxy for occasional welding work and I live at 7000 feet so I doubt a m20 would suffice well for a Lynx or similar. Of course with my genset costing 40+ cents/kwh this is mostly about hauling large tanks inside a closed vehicle "offroad" to my cabin. Also I have a hernia and health problems, moving things tanks out of my freakmobile means getting someone here to do it for me.
I'll be making my kiln, I need to be able to reach 1350F and ramp for jewelry burnout (presteaming so I only get some rather than massive amounts of soot in the kiln). I'd prefer to reach 1650F as I would like to be able to use metal clays requiring that in a kiln for the reduction vessels. I'm not sure yet if I want propane or electric, I know propane will be harder to build and control. It seems I need to run the genset anyway for ventilation and likely a oxycon/homefill... it might be best to keep it all electric.
Homebuilt lathes... I have a small cnc mill and rotary tables. I also have, thanks to my now ex-wife, a rather screwed up right wrist. This keeps me from doing a lot of things and makes me bitter when it hurts, which is often if I use it much. So I wonder to what extent I can use my cnc stuff as a glass lathe on occasion... maybe the tables turn too slow though? I worry that I will have problems hand turning rods and tubes although when I tried on my propane cookstove (softened and shaped clear boro rod? it was found with practice pipes) the motions weren't an issue. I'd like a way of making production spoons without putting the wear on my wrist... and of course lathes cost but maybe I have most of what I need if I'm creative, it would be a cute little thing but would take a couple hours to turn back into a mill for jewelry waxes because alignment is nontrivial.
Lets see, what else. Oh, with the jewelry I'm making mostly neo-pagan stuff as I'm slowly changing a small church I run into a small commune (I've lived in one for a few years). Aesthetically I like the idea of cast bronze with glass- though in my head it looks more like soft glass? I don't think I'd want to do both boro and soft at first and I want to learn boro more for spoons etc for barter and sale locally. I'm also thinking glass work would vibe with the kind of people that have been coming through, so that's another interest- teaching people involved with this a craft while building the community and a long term ecosystem of micro businesses- many of the people coming through the church have nothing, live in squats or buses or shacks, have no real skills or income, and often have health concerns of their own(I have Crohn's)- these are just the sort of people who need to learn home business skills as they've often ended up "On the Mesa" because they don't want to or can't stand being in mainstream society / town, or else society can't stand them. Many of these people's situation would be drastically bettered if they developed the skills and kit needed to earn a "McWage" from home (or more likely the broken old van in the sage behind the shack). So that's part of this, that I might use the tools and skills I acquire to teach future people coming through enough to get going on their own.
Anyway, I've degenerated to random mutterings about far off considerations, but its helping me think through this. It looks like I could add basic boro lampworking abilities to the jewelry studio I'm setting up for well under a grand, so I'm very tempted. It seems I should decide before I build my kiln, benches, vents, oxycon so I can make systems work well for both.
So, yeah, hi.