All aboard the failboat!

[dplaza]

damn that was lookin good. wish i could tell u, im havin similar problems. only time i get away with welds is when i garage the piece kinda high like 1100, size the holes as close as possible with as little extra glass. tack it in, fill any holes with a small stringer and puff it out. if my weld doesn't go smooth and it takes too long, the splash heat from going around in circles pops the can.

im gettin better at flame annealing/flashing the piece now though so maybe its time to give it another go and just make sure to warm up the can every few minutes and keep the flame on my hand torch really small to reduce splash.

the trick i learned about flame annealing/warming is to look over my glasses and watch the sodium flare, once the orange is coming off the piece evenly from all areas i can be reasonably sure its evenly hot. when some areas are cool it will look like the flame kinda sticks to the glass, and the warm areas the flame slides over the glass and emits that orange flame.

[HerbChambers]

I do what stroker said about blowing a bulge, seems to eliminate the acute angels and I've only cracked one tube from a downstem so far (only 8 or so minitubes in)

[hashmasta-kut]

if you have something you are working on thats touchy for heat problems radiating to other sections, dont use the annealing flame every few minutes to keep it all hot, do it way more often than that. maybe once every 2 minutes at the most.

[paulsafo]

Cool thanks for all the help gents. I was using all clear on mine. I had a buddy come over he's made a few already but I guess it's been awhile. I made the prep and let him show me how to assemble the second (color) tube. They both cracked inside the kiln at around 1000°. I don't have a kiln controller so it goes from 950-1050° on the garage.

This is all great advice and I can definitely see it's coming from that tiny tag inside. I will keep practicing! I'm not worried about losing the color/prep. All just good fun! Going to try again in a few!

[paulsafo]

Here's my first try with just clear. Still belongs in failboat territory haha

I can see how not welded in it is

[mbashaw]

Hey Paul, since you don't have a joint on that stem yet have you tried heating the whole bulge to white hot to let it all flow together, then gently blowing out the hole where your stem is and reaming it back open to prevent it from tagging?

[hashmasta-kut]

not sure how you guys weld them in, but when i put a diffy in a tube, i get it good size holes, drop it in, and use a tiny tiny flame, to sew it around until its all melted shut/ welded poorly, then give it an anneal flame for a bit, then i go around again with the pinner flame, working it in small sections and puffing it after heating each small section. typically i will double work each area and go around once and its done, then another flame anneal. you never have a wobbling diffy this way, and tags happen seldom.

[HerbChambers]

^^^

[paulsafo]

not sure how you guys weld them in, but when i put a diffy in a tube, i get it good size holes, drop it in, and use a tiny tiny flame, to sew it around until its all melted shut/ welded poorly, then give it an anneal flame for a bit, then i go around again with the pinner flame, working it in small sections and puffing it after heating each small section. typically i will double work each area and go around once and its done, then another flame anneal. you never have a wobbling diffy this way, and tags happen seldom.

This is exactly what I thought I was doing. Exactly.


But I still tagged it. Hrrrm. I'll keep at it.

[paulsafo]

when you pop the hole for the maria, you can always stick your downstem in to size it up and mark it with a sharpie for the length, then make the maria. Ill sometimes do this and this way I can see it inside the can and take the squashing of the bottom into consideration.

I definitely did this as well. I hope I don't sound unappreciative, I am. I just don't know why it keeps tagging I think I just need practice on my Welds

[paulsafo]

It's the smallest tag too

[paulsafo]

I think we got it this time... It's in the kiln. Wasn't getting the weld hot enough. Thought I was but I wasn't ! Joint came out without cracking this time. Two days in a row of cracks I'm ready for something to go right! Skipped work today better have something I can sell to show for it.

[paulsafo]

This wall got a little thin.

Thanks everyone for your help!!

[piedpiper608]

Tonight lesson learnt with a crash to the table lol

[paulsafo]

Shit ain't workin tonight

[BORO]

Cleaning up, found a box of mostly fail.

May be a good scrap or two.

[snoopdog6502]

Pulled a classic noob fuck up tonight, did a coil pot of red Elvis and cobalt blue alternating, struggled a bit with holes, blow tubes, cracks but I got it nice and hot puffed it out and condensed and got it into shape and real thick, popped the bowl, popped the carb, took it off the blow tube shaped the mouth piece...

Went to put it in the kiln..... I powered it up but never started the program, I put it in a 70F kiln, shut off the power and called it a night.

I did learn a lesson and got to sweat a little..Onward to bigger and better fuckups.

[Mr. Larry]

When I don't get the kiln on in time, I hit the whole spoon with a Bates style giant sooty flame 'till it uniformly glows. I bury it in a giant bag of pearlite, and batch anneal it the next day. Not 100 percent success, but it usually works.

[OceanMelt]

Nothing special, but was going to be happy with it. I had to F with the marble....



To my own defense, I didn't back it so it looked like shit when I attached. Lessons learned.

[OceanMelt]

Just UGH for the week.