Melting Pot Wiki - User contributions [en]

Dwaine

2007-01-22T05:05:50Z

Meerkat: added warning

aka:
*Dawine Scum
*Tattoed Scumbag
*Linda Richards
*RICK TULitch

A legend in his own right, Dwaine is the obligatory forum troll / big brother. If you piss him off he will have his way with you, if you're on his good side he'll cook you breakfast the next morning. Dwaine seems to like guns, pills, booze, women, flowers, pain, vulgarity, kittens, scented lotions, etc.

Dwaine's arch-nemesis is Mike from Aura Lens. Some people think they're the same person, but photographic evidence proves this to be false. [New evidence shows he has quite a feud with glass fuser Brock Craig of Canada]

Little known factoid about Dwaine, he will make slow painful love to your mother. He has no shame, and you should never, EVER, leave your mother unattended around him.

WARNING - Never click on a link that Dwaine posts in the forums as it will almost always be be some javascript or similar that will cause your web browser to go nuts and then crash and may even crash your computer - seriously, this is not a joke.

Spoon

2007-01-19T04:33:18Z

Meerkat: fixed link error

== Description ==

In lampworking, the term "'''spoon'''", most often refers to a type of dry smoking pipe that gets its name as the shape of it roughly resembles an eating spoon.

== Instructions ==

There are many many different techniques for making spoons, and the additions of patterns and colours adds many more elaborate techniques. For the purpose of this description, we will be making a clear spoon. The technique described here is not the only way or correct way, but rather covers the basics.

'''NOTE''' - between most of the steps it is important to keep all the parts you are working with warm, by continually flame annealing them. Every so often, crank up a bushy reducing flame and give the parts a bath for a few seconds, otherwise they may crack on you.

1. Take a 12mm tube, this will be your blow tube. Heat appx 1cm of the end of the tube and flare it out using a graphite reamer so that it has a lip/flare of appx 1cm. Set aside.

2. Take 25 to 26mm tube. Slightly taper inwards by about 5mm one end of the tube. Plug the other end of the tube with a stopper (some people use a plug of newspaper), anything to stop the flow of air will do.

3. Holding the 25mm tube in one hand and the 12mm tube in the other hand, bring them both into the flame, with the tapered end of the 25mm tube and the flared end of the 12mm tube being the ends that are in the flame. You need a fairly large flame for this. If your torch does not produce a big enough flame you will neeed to do a bit of extra back and forth work with each end of the tubes co-sharing time in the flame.

4. Heat up the ends so they are both glowing orange and bring them togeather while rotating so that they meld into one another forming a weld/seal. Make sure there are not any holes and bring both tubes (now sealed) out of the flame and blow gently into the 12mm tube while gently pushing the 12mm tube into the 25mm tube. This will cause the heated areas to flow into one another and puff out a bit, creating a nice weld and essentially making the two tubes as one. If need be you can bring the weld back into the flame to clean it up.

5. Flame cut the 25mm tube, so that you have a piece of 25mm tube (attached to the 12mm tube) that is appx 4 to 6 inches long, depending on the length you want your spoon to be. Most likely, you will be stretching your spoon out a bit so you can make it a bit shorter if you like.

6. Close off the flame cut end, use a clear rod to pick off any extra globs of glass at the tip and to bring the tip to a nice point, right in the center of the tube.

7. Heat up this end of the 25mm tube to a glowing orange and gently puff so that it rounds out, without puffing out and creating a bubble and so that the glass is evenly distributed on the end, rather than thick is some areas and thinner in others.

8. Heat up the first inch or so of the 25mm tube, this will become your bowl. Heat it up, till it glows orange and just begins to constrict. Remove from the flame and blow gently, yet firmly into the blow tube, causing the bowl to puff out and take shape. Continually rotate while doing this, or the bowl may sag. Keep doing this till it has cooled down and maintains it shape.

8. Create a very narrow flame, the more pinpoint the better and heat up a small spot on the bubble you just created. This spot needs to be somewhere along the apex of the bubble. You want to heat an area apppx 2mm around, this will become your bowl hole. First time you do this, just puff a little into the blow tube so the area you just heated puffs out but does not pop, now you have a little nipple on top of your bubble. Then just heat up this little nipple in the flame, leaving the rest of the bubble untouched, and with the nipple in the flame, blow hard and it will pop. If you like, clean up the hole with the tip of a very narrow graphite reamer.

9. Return your flame to normal and heat up the area around the hole you just made. Heat up appx 1cm all the way around it. While you are doing this, have at your read, to the side of your torch, a graphite pad or some sort of non-flammable surface to set the pipe onto and a graphite bowl push.

10. In one fluid motion, remove the pipe from the flame and se it bottom down on to the pad, hold it so it will not move or roll around. With your other hand, take the bowl push and center it over the hole you just made and push down into the area you heated around the hole and push inwards into the bubble on the end of the 25mm tube. Gently push, but keep a firm hand. This will create your bowl. If you mess up,it can be fixed, try heating the bowl area again and retrying the push, if you really mess up the whole thing, it can possibly still be salvaged by simply closing off the hole, heat the entire end up and start over.

11. [[Cold seal]] a [[punty]] to the bowl, keeping it on axis with the blow tube.

12. Heat up the area behind the bowl and before the blowtube, this will become your stem. Heat this area by continually rotating and going back and forth in the flame so that everything heats up evenly. While you are doing this, watch the tube and you will notice it begining to constrict, creating thicker walls.

13.When this area is constricted, glowing orange and feels like stiff chewing gum, remove it from the flame and give a gentle pull on either the blow tube or the punty so as to stretch the stem. You probably will only want to stretch it by a few centimeters at most (for a simple straight spoon), it is at this point though that you could also curve it if you wanted, but that is a more difficult skill.

You now want to create the mouthpiece, for which there are several well known methods, I will only describe one here at this time.

14. flame cut off the blowtube, thus closing off the mouth piece. Switch to a very narrow flame and heat up just the center of the mouth piece and not the surroudning area. Poke at this heated up area very narrow (2 to 3mm) clear rod, so that with each poke a little bit of glass comes out of the center of the mouth piece and off onto the rod. Eventually the glass covering the center area will become so thin that it will just pop open, creating a hole (the mouthpiece), you can then clean up and widen this hole using a reamer and if it is too big you can narrow it by rotating it in the flame.

15. Hold your spoon with a pair of tweezers or other tools and flame cut off the punty, or if you cold sealed it, just tap it off. Clean up the scar and put it in the kiln to anneal.

--[[User:Meerkat|Meerkat]] 23:07, January 18, 2007 (EST)

Spoon

2007-01-19T04:32:23Z

Meerkat: fixed spelling mistake

== Description ==

In lampworking, the term "'''spoon'''", most often refers to a type of dry smoking pipe that gets its name as the shape of it roughly resembles an eating spoon.

== Instructions ==

There are many many different techniques for making spoons, and the additions of patterns and colours adds many more elaborate techniques. For the purpose of this description, we will be making a clear spoon. The technique described here is not the only way or correct way, but rather covers the basics.

'''NOTE''' - between most of the steps it is important to keep all the parts you are working with warm, by continually flame annealing them. Every so often, crank up a bushy reducing flame and give the parts a bath for a few seconds, otherwise they may crack on you.

1. Take a 12mm tube, this will be your blow tube. Heat appx 1cm of the end of the tube and flare it out using a graphite reamer so that it has a lip/flare of appx 1cm. Set aside.

2. Take 25 to 26mm tube. Slightly taper inwards by about 5mm one end of the tube. Plug the other end of the tube with a stopper (some people use a plug of newspaper), anything to stop the flow of air will do.

3. Holding the 25mm tube in one hand and the 12mm tube in the other hand, bring them both into the flame, with the tapered end of the 25mm tube and the flared end of the 12mm tube being the ends that are in the flame. You need a fairly large flame for this. If your torch does not produce a big enough flame you will neeed to do a bit of extra back and forth work with each end of the tubes co-sharing time in the flame.

4. Heat up the ends so they are both glowing orange and bring them togeather while rotating so that they meld into one another forming a weld/seal. Make sure there are not any holes and bring both tubes (now sealed) out of the flame and blow gently into the 12mm tube while gently pushing the 12mm tube into the 25mm tube. This will cause the heated areas to flow into one another and puff out a bit, creating a nice weld and essentially making the two tubes as one. If need be you can bring the weld back into the flame to clean it up.

5. Flame cut the 25mm tube, so that you have a piece of 25mm tube (attached to the 12mm tube) that is appx 4 to 6 inches long, depending on the length you want your spoon to be. Most likely, you will be stretching your spoon out a bit so you can make it a bit shorter if you like.

6. Close off the flame cut end, use a clear rod to pick off any extra globs of glass at the tip and to bring the tip to a nice point, right in the center of the tube.

7. Heat up this end of the 25mm tube to a glowing orange and gently puff so that it rounds out, without puffing out and creating a bubble and so that the glass is evenly distributed on the end, rather than thick is some areas and thinner in others.

8. Heat up the first inch or so of the 25mm tube, this will become your bowl. Heat it up, till it glows orange and just begins to constrict. Remove from the flame and blow gently, yet firmly into the blow tube, causing the bowl to puff out and take shape. Continually rotate while doing this, or the bowl may sag. Keep doing this till it has cooled down and maintains it shape.

8. Create a very narrow flame, the more pinpoint the better and heat up a small spot on the bubble you just created. This spot needs to be somewhere along the apex of the bubble. You want to heat an area apppx 2mm around, this will become your bowl hole. First time you do this, just puff a little into the blow tube so the area you just heated puffs out but does not pop, now you have a little nipple on top of your bubble. Then just heat up this little nipple in the flame, leaving the rest of the bubble untouched, and with the nipple in the flame, blow hard and it will pop. If you like, clean up the hole with the tip of a very narrow graphite reamer.

9. Return your flame to normal and heat up the area around the hole you just made. Heat up appx 1cm all the way around it. While you are doing this, have at your read, to the side of your torch, a graphite pad or some sort of non-flammable surface to set the pipe onto and a graphite bowl push.

10. In one fluid motion, remove the pipe from the flame and se it bottom down on to the pad, hold it so it will not move or roll around. With your other hand, take the bowl push and center it over the hole you just made and push down into the area you heated around the hole and push inwards into the bubble on the end of the 25mm tube. Gently push, but keep a firm hand. This will create your bowl. If you mess up,it can be fixed, try heating the bowl area again and retrying the push, if you really mess up the whole thing, it can possibly still be salvaged by simply closing off the hole, heat the entire end up and start over.

11. [[Cold seal]] a [[punty]] to the bowl, keeping it on axis with the blow tube.

12. Heat up the area behind the bowl and before the blowtube, this will become your stem. Heat this area by continually rotating and going back and forth in the flame so that everything heats up evenly. While you are doing this, watch the tube and you will notice it begining to constrict, creating thicker walls.

13.When this area is constricted, glowing orange and feels like stiff chewing gum, remove it from the flame and give a gentle pull on either the blow tube or the punty so as to stretch the stem. You probably will only want to stretch it by a few centimeters at most (for a simple straight spoon), it is at this point though that you could also curve it if you wanted, but that is a more difficult skill.

You now want to create the mouthpiece, for which there are several well known methods, I will only describe one here at this time.

14. flame cut off the blowtube, thus closing off the mouth piece. Switch to a very narrow flame and heat up just the center of the mouth piece and not the surroudning area. Poke at this heated up area very narrow (2 to 3mm) clear rod, so that with each poke a little bit of glass comes out of the center of the mouth piece and off onto the rod. Eventually the glass covering the center area will become so thin that it will just pop open, creating a hole (the mouthpiece), you can then clean up and widen this hole using a reamer and if it is too big you can narrow it by rotating it in the flame.

15. Hold your spoon with a pair of tweezers or other tools and flame cut off the punty, or if you [[cold sealed]] it, just tap it off. Clean up the scar and put it in the kiln to anneal.

--[[User:Meerkat|Meerkat]] 23:07, January 18, 2007 (EST)

Spoon

2007-01-19T04:07:25Z

Meerkat: How to make a spoon

== Description ==

In lampworking, the term "'''spoon'''", most often refers to a type of dry smoking pipe that gets its name as the shape of it roughly resembles an eating spoon.

== Instructions ==

There are many many different techniques for making spoons, and the additions of patterns and colours adds many more elaborate techniques. For the purpose of this description, we will be making a clear spoon. The technique described here is not the only way or correct way, but rather covers the basics.

'''NOTE''' - between most of the steps it is important to keep all the parts you are working with warm, by continually flame annealing them. Every so often, crank up a bushy reducing flame and give the parts a bath for a few seconds, otherwise they may crack on you.

1. Take a 12mm tube, this will be your blow tube. Heat appx 1cm of the end of the tube and flare it out using a graphite reamer so that it has a lip/flare of appx 1cm. Set aside.

2. Take 25 to 26mm tube. Slightly taper inwards by about 5mm one end of the tube. Plug the other end of the tube with a stopper (some people use a plug of newspaper), anything to stop the flow of air will do.

3. Holding the 25mm tube in one hand and the 12mm tube in the other hand, bring them both into the flame, with the tapered end of the 25mm tube and the flared end of the 12mm tube being the ends that are in the flame. You need a fairly large flame for this. If your torch does not produce a big enough flame you will neeed to do a bit of extra back and forth work with each end of the tubes co-sharing time in the flame.

4. Heat up the ends so they are both glowing orange and bring them togeather while rotating so that they meld into one another forming a weld/seal. Make sure there are not any holes and bring both tubes (now sealed) out of the flame and blow gently into the 12mm tube while gently pushing the 12mm tube into the 25mm tube. This will cause the heated areas to flow into one another and puff out a bit, creating a nice weld and essentially making the two tubes as one. If need be you can bring the weld back into the flame to clean it up.

5. Flame cut the 25mm tube, so that you have a piece of 25mm tube (attached to the 12mm tube) that is appx 4 to 6 inches long, depending on the length you want your spoong to be. Most likely, you will be stretching your spoon out a bit so you can make it a bit shorter if you like.

6. Close off the flame cut end, use a clear rod to pick off any extra globs of glass at the tip and to bring the tip to a nice point, right in the center of the tube.

7. Heat up this end of the 25mm tube to a glowing orange and gently puff so that it rounds out, without puffing out and creating a bubble and so that the glass is evenly distributed on the end, rather than thick is some areas and thinner in others.

8. Heat up the first inch or so of the 25mm tube, this will become your bowl. Heat it up, till it glows orange and just begins to constrict. Remove from the flame and blow gently, yet firmly into the blow tube, causing the bowl to puff out and take shape. Continually rotate while doing this, or the bowl may sag. Keep doing this till it has cooled down and maintains it shape.

8. Create a very narrow flame, the more pinpoint the better and heat up a small spot on the bubble you just created. This spot needs to be somewhere along the apex of the bubble. You want to heat an area apppx 2mm around, this will become your bowl hole. First time you do this, just puff a little into the blow tube so the area you just heated puffs out but does not pop, now you have a little nipple on top of your bubble. Then just heat up this little nipple in the flame, leaving the rest of the bubble untouched, and with the nipple in the flame, blow hard and it will pop. If you like, clean up the hole with the tip of a very narrow graphite reamer.

9. Return your flame to normal and heat up the area around the hole you just made. Heat up appx 1cm all the way around it. While you are doing this, have at your read, to the side of your torch, a graphite pad or some sort of non-flammable surface to set the pipe onto and a graphite bowl push.

10. In one fluid motion, remove the pipe from the flame and se it bottom down on to the pad, hold it so it will not move or roll around. With your other hand, take the bowl push and center it over the hole you just made and push down into the area you heated around the hole and push inwards into the bubble on the end of the 25mm tube. Gently push, but keep a firm hand. This will create your bowl. If you mess up,it can be fixed, try heating the bowl area again and retrying the push, if you really mess up the whole thing, it can possibly still be salvaged by simply closing off the hole, heat the entire end up and start over.

11. [[Cold seal]] a [[punty]] to the bowl, keeping it on axis with the blow tube.

12. Heat up the area behind the bowl and before the blowtube, this will become your stem. Heat this area by continually rotating and going back and forth in the flame so that everything heats up evenly. While you are doing this, watch the tube and you will notice it begining to constrict, creating thicker walls.

13.When this area is constricted, glowing orange and feels like stiff chewing gum, remove it from the flame and give a gentle pull on either the blow tube or the punty so as to stretch the stem. You probably will only want to stretch it by a few centimeters at most (for a simple straight spoon), it is at this point though that you could also curve it if you wanted, but that is a more difficult skill.

You now want to create the mouthpiece, for which there are several well known methods, I will only describe one here at this time.

14. flame cut off the blowtube, thus closing off the mouth piece. Switch to a very narrow flame and heat up just the center of the mouth piece and not the surroudning area. Poke at this heated up area very narrow (2 to 3mm) clear rod, so that with each poke a little bit of glass comes out of the center of the mouth piece and off onto the rod. Eventually the glass covering the center area will become so thin that it will just pop open, creating a hole (the mouthpiece), you can then clean up and widen this hole using a reamer and if it is too big you can narrow it by rotating it in the flame.

15. Hold your spoon with a pair of tweezers or other tools and flame cut off the punty, or if you [[cold sealed]] it, just tap it off. Clean up the scar and put it in the kiln to anneal.

--[[User:Meerkat|Meerkat]] 23:07, January 18, 2007 (EST)

Cold seal

2007-01-19T03:20:15Z

Meerkat:

A cold seal is a technique for attaching a punty to a piece of work, in which you dont want the punty to be firmly attached and you want the punty to be easy to remove, leaving a minimum or no mark/scar behind on your piece of work.

A common way of doing this is:

1. Make sure the spot on the piece you are working on, where you are going to cold seal the punty to is warm. In other words, do not try to cold seal to a cold piece of work. Usually the artist keeps the piece gently warmed by holding it far out in the back of the flame.

2. Put the puntie into the flame and heat up just the tip so that it is glowing oraange to white hot. Roll the tip of the punty at a 45 degree angle on a graphite pad to create a little cone a the end.

3. Heat the punty back up in the flame to glowing orange, meanwhile bring the piece towards you, holding it right above the barrel of your torch or right above the flame.

4. Bring the punty out of the flame, let it cool for a few seconds to develop a skin, just as it goes from orange to pink, touch it to the piece.

5. If it worked the piece will now be attached to the punty and you can remove the other punty/rod that was attached to the piece, if it did not work, try try again.

To remove the cold seal punty when you are done with it. Hold the piece in a set of tools (or attached to another punty)and gently tap the cold seal punty on the barrel of your torch and it should just pop off. Sometimes you may need to tap several times, with varying degrees of force, but if done properly you should not have to tap too hard.

Stringer

2007-01-19T03:11:04Z

Meerkat:

A stringer is a very thin rod of glass, usually between 1mm to 3mm. Stringers are used for drawing thin lines and writing/drawing letters and shapes.

One of the ways to make a stringer is:

1. Take a rod of the desired colour you wish to make a stringer from.

2. Attach a clear punty/rod to the end of the coloured rod.

3. Heat apprx 1 to 2 cm of the coloured rod until it is soft like chewing gum.

4. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a second, then gently, but firmly pull the coloured rod and the clear punty away from each other in opposite directions so that the heated part of the colour rod is stretched thin. You will want to keep firm pressure on this, otherwise the stringer will sag.

5. Eventually the stringer will cool to a point where it will not stretch anymore, continue pulling firmly so that there is tension, but not enough tension to break the stringer, do this until the stringer has cooled.

6. Use a tool to snip off the stringer and set it aside.

Stringers cool relatively fast, so you should be able to pick it up and use it within 5 minets.

Punty

2007-01-19T03:04:53Z

Meerkat:

A punty also spelled puntie is the term for a rod of glass that is used as a handle to hold, support and rotate the glass object you are working on in the flame, so that you can keep your hands further away from the flame.

In beadwork a stainless steel mandrel is sometimes refered to as a punty

Puntie

2007-01-19T03:04:50Z

Meerkat:

A puntie also spelled punty is the term for a rod of glass that is used as a handle to hold, support and rotate the glass object you are working on in the flame, so that you can keep your hands further away from the flame.

In beadwork a stainless steel mandrel is sometimes refered to as a puntie

Twisties

2007-01-19T03:00:21Z

Meerkat:

Twisties also known as twist ups is a simple pattern technique where oen or more colours appears twisted into an elongated spiral within clear or translucent coloured glass, although for this description, clear glass is used.

The most common way to do this (although there are other methods) is:

1. create a gather of clear, the size of the gather is dependant on how big you want your final product to be, as you will be stretching out (elongating) this gather. However it is all stil relative, for example if you make a 2cm (in diamter) gather, you may choose to stretch this out to a stringer that is 3mm in diameter but 10cm long or with the same 2cm gather you may choose to stretch it out to 1cm in diameter but only 5cm long (or any such combination)

2. Using a tool (usually a masher) squish the gather so that it is a flat pancake, while remaining attached to the rod (which is now your punty)

3. Apply a colour to one side or both sides of the pancake, or you can also fume the pancake.

4. Apply clear glass on top of the colour or fume.

5. Melt in the clear and attach a punty to the other side.

6. Heat the gather with the trapped colour/fume till it becomes soft like chewing gum.

7. Remove from flame, and twist the punties in opposite directions while pulling to the desired length and thickness. Some people like to use a power drill to do the twising in order to achieve a very tight twist.

This technique is often used to produce what is called a filligri and is a common feature in the stem of wine goblets.

Twist ups

2007-01-19T02:59:31Z

Meerkat:

Twist ups also known as twistes is a simple pattern technique where oen or more colours appears twisted into an elongated spiral within clear or translucent coloured glass, although for this description, clear glass is used.

The most common way to do this (although there are other methods) is:

1. create a gather of clear, the size of the gather is dependant on how big you want your final product to be, as you will be stretching out (elongating) this gather. However it is all stil relative, for example if you make a 2cm (in diamter) gather, you may choose to stretch this out to a stringer that is 3mm in diameter but 10cm long or with the same 2cm gather you may choose to stretch it out to 1cm in diameter but only 5cm long (or any such combination)

2. Using a tool (usually a masher) squish the gather so that it is a flat pancake, while remaining attached to the rod (which is now your punty)

3. Apply a colour to one side or both sides of the pancake, or you can also fume the pancake.

4. Apply clear glass on top of the colour or fume.

5. Melt in the clear and attach a punty to the other side.

6. Heat the gather with the trapped colour/fume till it becomes soft like chewing gum.

7. Remove from flame, and twist the punties in opposite directions while pulling to the desired length and thickness. Some people like to use a power drill to do the twising in order to achieve a very tight twist.

This technique is often used to produce what is called a filligri and is a common feature in the stem of wine goblets.

Fuming

2007-01-14T05:08:35Z

Meerkat: How to fume

== Summary ==

'''Fuming''' is a lamp working (glass blowing) technique, in which solid silver or gold is turned into a vapor by placing in the flame of your torch. The silver/gold vapor then condenses onto the glass held further out in the flame and appears as a patina ranging in colours from blue, pink, white (from silver) to orange,green or red (from gold). The range of colours and opacity can be varied depending on how much fume (vaporized metal) is deposited onto the glass and how the then fumed glass is worked in the flame afterwards.

== Technique ==

Precut small pieces (3mm) of silver/gold.

Place a single piece of silver/gold onto a graphite pad.

Heat up the end of a short length (3 to 4 inches) of 4 to 6 mm rod till it is white hot and forms a small gather.

Press the hot gather onto the piece of silver/gold, smooshing the silver/gold between the gather and the graphite pad, thus pushing the silver/gold into the gather and allow to cool for a few seconds.

The silver/gold should have stuck to the glass, if not try again.

Make sure the glass that is receiving the fume has been pre-warmed so that the fume will stick to it. Do this by giving the glass a quick bath in a bushy propane flame.

Adjust your torch to create a very small reducing flame.

Hold the glass rod with the silver/gold about 1 to 2 mm past the candle tip.

hold the glass you want to fume out in the flame, approximately 6 inches behind the rod with the silver/gold

Once placed near the candle, the silver/gold will melt and start to give off the fume, sometimes this fume is visable as a smoke, other times you can not see it, but watch the glass that it is being deposited onto to notice if it is changing color. If it is not, try changing the characteristics of your flame.

When the glass has obtained the desired patina, set aside the short rod with the silver/gold. You can now adjust back to a normal flame and work your glass.

== Variations on technique ==

The fume (especially silver fume) can be burned off with a neutral to oxidizing flame. Thus if you dont want to lose your fume, it is suggested that you encase the fume with additional glass (usually clear). However the patina of the fume can be changed by blasting the glass with alternating reducing and oxidising flame.

One way to change the patina is to blast the fumed glass with a bushy reducing flame, you can also hit it with alternating blasts of reducing and oxidizing to change the patina. If a layer of carbon builds up when using the bushy reducing flame, it can be safely burned off with a quick blast of an oxidizing flame, revealing the new patina underneath.

A fume can be placed either on the outside or inside surface of a tube. By fuming on the inside of a tube, the fume is more protected from being burned off as the piece is worked more in the flame.

Start with light fuming and see what effects you get. Heavier fuming of silver can create a whiteish color.

Varying the amountsof silver/gold and layering silver and gold fuming will give lots of different and interesting effects.

== Sources of gold & silver ==

Ideally the gold or silver should be as pure as possible with a grade of .999.

You can purchase .999 grade silver and gold from gold and silver smiths and dealers. It is usually sold in wire form or in little beads called casting grains.

Alternate sources that may or may not be .999 pure are:
silver or gold jewelry
silver or gold coins

== Safety ==

Always use good ventilation. and be careful to minimize your exposure to the fumes. The fumes are very poisonous.

Be careful not to spill the molten silver onto your torch face as it will clog and possibly ruin the ports.

== Effects and Patterns ==

Spiral and wig wag effects can be done with just clear tube and fume in the following way. - For this example a 25mm tube is used.

Attach a 25mm tube to a 12mm blow tube and close one end of the 25mm tube.

Fume the 25mm tube with gold or silver so that it is completly covered.

Using clear 5 to 6mm rods, draw stripes of clear glass lengthwise down the tube.

Melt the stripes into the tube, puffing to keep the tube shape, doing this will burn off the fume from where it was not protected by the clear glass stripes.

You now have a striped tube that you can then use other with other techniques to make things like wigwags and spirals.

----

'''NOTE TO OTHERS''' - Please post more techniques here on how to achieve various effects, preferably with pictures

--[[User:Meerkat|Meerkat]] 23:02, 13 January 2007 (EST)

Fuming

2007-01-14T04:02:45Z

Meerkat: How to fume

== Summary ==

'''Fuming''' is a lamp working (glass blowing) technique, in which solid silver or gold is turned into a vapor by placing in the flame of your torch. The silver/gold vapor then condenses onto the glass held further out in the flame and appears as a patina ranging in colours from blue, pink, white (from silver) to orange, red (from gold). The range of colours and opacity can be varied depending on how much fume (vaporized metal) is deposited onto the glass and how the then fumed glass is worked in the flame afterwards.

== Technique ==

Precut small pieces (3mm) of silver/gold.

Place a single piece of silver/gold onto a graphite pad.

Heat up the end of a short length (3 to 4 inches) of 4 to 6 mm rod till it is white hot.

Press the hot gather onto the piece of silver/gold and allow to cool.

The silver/gold should have stuck to the glass, if not try again.

Make sure the glass that is receiving the fume has been pre-warmed so that the fume will stick to it. Do this by giving the glass a quick bath in a bushy propane flame.

Adjust your torch to create a very small reducing flame.

Hold the glass rod with the silver/gold about 1 to 2 mm past the candle tip.

hold the glass you want to fume out in the flame, approximately 6 inches behind the rod with the silver/gold

Once placed near the candle, the silver/gold will melt and start to give off the fume, sometimes this fume is visable as a smoke, other times you can not see it, but watch the glass that it is being deposited onto to notice if it is changing color. If it is not, try changing the characteristics of your flame.

When the glass has obtained the desired patina, set aside the short rod with the silver/gold. You can now adjust back to a normal flame and work your glass.

== Variations on technique ==

The fume (especially silver fume) can be burned off with a neutral to oxidizing flame. Thus if you dont want to lose your fume, it is suggested that you encase the fume with additional glass (usually clear). However the patina of the fume can be changed by blasting the glass with alternating reducing and oxidising flame.

One way to change the patina is to blast the fumed glass with a bushy reducing flame, you can also hit it with alternating blasts of reducing and oxidizing to change the patina. If a layer of carbon builds up when using the bushy reducing flame, it can be safely burned off with a quick blast of an oxidizing flame, revealing the new patina underneath.

A fume can be placed either on the outside or inside surface of a tube. By fuming on the inside of a tube, the fume is more protected from being burned off as the piece is worked more in the flame.

Start with light fuming and see what effects you get. Heavier fuming of silver can create a whiteish color.

Varying the amountsof silver/gold and layering silver and gold fuming will give lots of different and interesting effects.

== Sources of gold & silver ==

Ideally the gold or silver should be as pure as possible with a grade of .999.

You can purchase .999 grade silver and gold from gold and silver smiths and dealers. It is usually sold in wire form or in little beads called casting grains.

Alternate sources that may or may not be .999 pure are:
silver or gold jewelry
silver or gold coins

== Safety ==

Always use good ventilation. and be careful to minimize your exposure to the fumes. The fumes are very poisonous.

Be careful not to spill the molten silver onto your torch face as it will clog and possibly ruin the ports.

== Effects and Patterns ==

Spiral and wig wag effects can be done with just clear tube and fume in the following way. - For this example a 25mm tube is used.

Attach a 25mm tube to a 12mm blow tube and close one end of the 25mm tube.

Fume the 25mm tube with gold or silver so that it is completly covered.

Using clear 5 to 6mm rods, draw stripes of clear glass lengthwise down the tube.

Melt the stripes into the tube, puffing to keep the tube shape, doing this will burn off the fume from where it was not protected by the clear glass stripes.

You now have a striped tube that you can then use other with other techniques to make things like wigwags and spirals.

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'''NOTE TO OTHERS''' - Please post more techniques here on how to achieve various effects, preferably with pictures

--[[User:Meerkat|Meerkat]] 23:02, 13 January 2007 (EST)