Crazy Raised Dots

Jun 23, 2008 at 4:53 PM
17 comments

This weekend I practiced pulling stringers (very thin glass rods) and using them. Saturday I tried to draw with the stringers, but I was obviously getting way too ahead of myself, because that sucked. Bad. :) Sunday I stayed very basic and played with raised dots. I also worked on getting a consistent size and round shape on spacer beads. heh. I still have *A LOT* of practice time to put in, obviously! :D These were fun enough to share though.

Raised Dot Practice

2 comments

17 comments

Tags:

glass,
lampwork

Comments

I like the ones in the middle with all the different colored dots.

Those are fun to make too. I've seen beads where you start with a small disk and five large dots around it, and you just keep adding onto those dots until your bead is star shaped. I want to try one of those soon.

oooo, I'm a sucker for anything star shaped. Be sure to post pics!

I sure will! ...As soon as I get one that actually looks star shaped. :D ...Or at least doesn't explode on me. heh.

how are you making your stringers? I've been able to make 'stringers' of two color twirls that are maybe two inches long and not even remotely uniform.

I make single color stringers by heating up a nice bit of glass, then sticking it end-to-end with another warmed in the flame but not molten glass rod. Take that out of the flame and count out four seconds, then start to pull.

When pulling mutli-colored stringers, I heat both rods in the flame and lay about an inch of one down on the other, like toothpaste on a toothbrush. I pull the "toothpaste" rod down a bit and push it into the tip of the bottom rod, just to make sure both colors are solidly stuck together. Heat in the flame until molten, maybe lightly twisting just to start the colors securely together. And again, pull out of the flame, count to four (or just let it stiffen a little so it's not drippy) and twisting both rods in opposite directions, pull gently.

You definitely have to make a few messes just trying it a few times before you get the feel of it. Try looking for a youtube video on pulling stringers, and then just practice. I've only recently gotten to the point where it doesn't frustrate me ...most of the time.

count to four! ok. Last night I started to understand how to use the flame a little better too but that's going to take a while. How thick do your stringers end up do you think?

I can make my stingers thicker or thinner as needed by pulling them longer and thinner or stopping when they're short and thick. The thickness I pull depends on how I want to use them.

do you have to keep reheating the glass to do it? maybe I'm doing it too slow.

You have to very patiently heat the glass a long time in the flame so you have a really good sized gather (a big ball of molten glass). It's much easier with a hotter torch than the HotHead, but it's still possible with our wee torches. Having said that, there have been many times I had to reheat. Try pulling faster though, just to see. I would think that would help. Also, it helps to hold the rod you're gathering on at a diagonal in the flame rather than cutting in perpendicularly. Holding the rod at a steeper angle in the flame means more glass in the heat of the flame at one time.

I don't even have a hot head. I have a fireworks head which isn't as hot as a hot head. I do tend to hold the glass in the flame at an angle, but that's partially because of the position my flame is in in relation to me:

flame |

| (these lines are the table)

____________

I need to build a special bench once I'm healed.

aw my diagram looks like poo. anyway.. the flame is about a foot from the top of the table, and I'm sitting in front of it and a good foot and a half or so to the right of it. the flame is probably just below my head height when I'm sitting I think.

Oh! I didn't even realize there were other single fuel torches available! I thought HotHead was the only option. Interesting.

Oh there are many single fuel torches available, but very few are made specifically for lampworking. The fireworks torch head is made for lampworking. I also have a reg torch head for soldering and I've read that some people use those for lampworking, but it's tougher to use because it doesn't mix in with air (and therefore oxygen) as well as the HH and fireworks heads.

Well, I knew you could buy single fuel torches for soldering and brazing and the like, but I didn't know there was more than one maker of single tank lampwork torches.

I can't even imagine how frustrating and painfully slow it would be to try to work glass with a soldering torch. Those people are just crazy! :)

hehehe. I thought about trying it when I thought my torch head was broken!

I could see that. Desperate times and all! :)

Crazy Raised Dots

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