Fixing Broken Pieces

[ScurvySee]

I have a friend who broke his 2 foot tall waterpipe and he wants me to fix it. I have never tried to fix something before and I was wondering what the general procedure would be. I am guessing you slowly bring the broken pieces up to temp in the kiln so they dont explode when you put them in the flame, but how do you hold them after that? I was also wondering how much you would charge if any for a successful repair. Any advice is appreciated.

[bc]

unless it's a really easy repair, I'd tell your friend to chalk that one to the 420 gods

[β]

tell him/her you can make a jar out of it, or make a real shorty if you really want to try.

i'm with bc, chalk it up to the 420 gods

[schmoinkel]

If you really want to try and you should imo, its good practice for fixing your own stuff and its not going to matter as much if it breaks.

Don't put it in the kiln first, cus your really wont be able to hold it well if you do. Heat broken area with a propane only flame first. Then gradually give it the oxygen. Snip off the broken part and shape.....then kiln it. You might want to leave your kiln off till you put it in there or just leave it at 500 or so, just so it wont shock the rest of the peice.

Just go slow at first and your should be fine.

What have you got to loose?

Hope that helps

[Ro's Glass World]

i heat to annealing temp or just above, grab with my high heat gloves (pre heated punti is warming in flame on my rod rack) punti (somewhere i chose earlier , ) some times i just fix, sometimes i heat whole piece in flame first, depends on where the crack is or severity and the piece/how its made. work FAST, grab with kevlar wrapped tongs or my high heat gloves, get punti off and anneal. either it works or you work the piece into something else as you go or it gets trashed. always an exiting though! fixing someones work, client needs to know it may not survive!
ro

[Glassroots]

remember to clean it first with acetone. and keep in mind acetone is flammable

[Spider]

A few things to remember or know if you're new to glass and trying to repair or "chase" a crack - totally clean the piece before pre-heating and start with the flame hitting uncracked area, move towards the end of the crack and slowly move towards where the crack started. WARNING- if you flame the start of the crack first, you'll seal in the air and never remove the crack's signature. Also by making sure the "good" part of your piece (where the crack has a chance to continue) is hotter, the crack won't continue on -you hope!

If you do it right and have a little luck, you'll chase the air out and have no sign of a crack. If you're working on a big piece, you may not want to try to fix it all in the first time out of the kiln.

Cracks suck

[brettodie]

heres a basic run thru of what i do when i fix tubes for people.....normally im fixing roors and phx's. first thing i do is get $25 up front non refundable weather the piece gets fixed or breaks worse. next i put the piece in the kiln with the mouth piece taped shut sticking out out the doggy door i fill the spaces in the doggy door so theres no leaking with fiberfrax. i normally let them soak and hour which is overkill but it gives me time to get set up and take a safty break before i start. next i get the new female glass/glass fitting ready i shorten and put a tiny bit of flare on the end of it. next i make sure i have clean puntys,a male glas//glass fitting ready to use as a blowtube. time to pull the tube now and clean off the broken area and fill it back in so i can blow a small bubble a bit bigger then the fitting im attatching,and pop a hole in it the size of the flare on the female.time to garage and let it warm up again. again i wait like a 1/2 hour before starting up again. next put the female fitting on the end of the male fitting. fire up my hand torch. pull the broken tube ,heat the two connecting points and attach, set the whole thing on the table so it stands and use the hand torch to finish the seal. remove the male fitting and put in kiln. follow your normal annealing cycle and your finished. fixing stuff is great practice i think it make you think on your feet and problem solve. i fix almost everything for $25 up front then a predetirmined amount after,with a caveat that i can add a bit extra in case things get out of hand and it takes more time then expected. just be clear about everything that you can and everyone will be happy in the end. ive only had one tube out of about 35-40 thats broken and i turned that into the biggest roor steam roller youve ever seen.you just have to take care and be patient. good luck have a great one. peace brett

[ScurvySee]

What's broken is the large neck part, it broke right by the base, i figured I'd just slowly heat up the broken parts to working temp and fuse them back together and anneal. What happens happens.

[somberbear]

youll get shrinkage and all kinds of crazy shit.....

chuck it up in the lathe... clean up the crack ... fix a punti onto the bottom... work and add or cut awa clear as needed... seal puff condence.... till correct....

alot easier said then done...especialy if theres any art.... if its thin thin thing dont even try.... just be careful..... yourll probably break it any way or look a little janky....

[ScurvySee]

Yea I'm not expecting to be able to fix it, but it is worth a shot. Annnd I don't have a lathe. Could be interesting.

[HaulAss]

"client needs to know it may not survive!" yeap exactly

If its completly useless now, go ahead and try and fix it, theres nothing to lose anyways right? If its sorta fucked you might want to warn him that it could be useless afterwords.

I'd pre heat it like brettodie said with the doggie door to the kiln open. Is your kiln big enougth to put it in when your done? Go for it but just make sure the person knows it could go all wrong and blow up into a bunch of little peices. I wouldn't charge them if that happened. Maybe you could make them some phat jars out of the tube section if just the bottom fucked up.

[loydb]

When I'm repairing I do:

1) Tell them it's probably going to break, and that they should make their peace with that now.

2) Look at them again and say "So you know it's going to break, right?"

3) Clean it with some rubbing alcohol

4) Stick it in the kiln and let it spend a session soaking while I do other stuff (this burns off all the crap that I couldn't clean).

5) Wash it out well to clean out the ash from the above kilning (I also clean my own pieces like this :) )

6) Bring it slowly back up to temp

7) Rage a punty, stick it in the kiln and attach

8) Bring it out, do my best. Bushy flame, try and get a good even heat base in it before I start repairing.

9) Call them and tell them their piece broke about half the time.

[ScurvySee]

Thanks for all the tips everyone. Loyd, when you stick it in the kiln to burn off all the extra "stuff" does it stank up your shop real bad?

[loydb]

Nope. I do the best cleaning job I can with rubbing alcohol first, so it's not like I'm putting a totally gunked-out piece in there.

[FredLight]

I had a friend bring me a broken HVY piece, I told them I could'nt guarantee anything and that I could make a nice jar.

She got scared and went home and glued it. It works fine and you can't see where it was glued.

And I'm off the hook.