pictures at BAGI

Grab a pipe or punty from the pipe warmer
One gathers glass from the crucible
This glass melting furnace is a pot furnace which has a crucible.
One shapes the glass by marvering.
Reheating is done in the glory hole.
Putting in a jack line at the bench.



Thanks Caley - I like having pictures showing I was actually there.

terminology

I have gotten several e-mails about terminology.

 

I can try to improve those that were specifically asked about:

• punty - a long metal rod for holding/turning glass at an end
• glory hole - on oven like thing for heating glass at the end of a punty.

hmm - since I am getting e-mails instead of comments, this blog concept is working less than ideally. typepad.com seems to lack the log in to add a comment requirement. Presumably one looses the ability to control the audience, which I am not currently using here either.

 

Thanks for all the encouraging (and constructive) feedback.

 

 

pictures of second week work

Started by repeating last week's exercises (check out the jack lines on the snowman on the right):






Then added color to flowers:





Then for something different, a paperweight:




Technical note: took the snowman picture with my little gumby tripod and no flash.

class 3

I learned to cap tonight! OK, the rest of the class figured it out last week and I got individual help, but I got it. Have my thumb on the pipe so I can just bend it on to the end.

 

Oops. Know what popping a balloon is like? There are times when it is inappropriate to cap.

 

Did I not explain this term? Put a puff of air in the pipe and seal it with your thumb until the bubble grows.

 

We made ornaments. Mostly round things of varying sizes. Good thing quality control is loose.  ;) Tilt one way to make longer and another to make wider. Cool bits off that you don't want to expand as you blow.

 

If your ornament gets to hot, it can colapse. Remove from glow hole quickly and blow gently (not the other way around). Merry Christmas Dad! (You are going to have a hard time obtaining the yellow flower I made with you in mind.)

 

I think I am finally starting to get better at gently applying constant pressure to start jack lines. Also learning how to fix it if I start to spiral. Maybe even avoid other problems by (remember this one?) Keep it turning.

 

Still working at grabbing glass smoothly....

 

Looking forward to showing you pictures of last week's bits, but not tonight. After class we ground down the attaches for our paper weights. Two more snowmen in the name of practicing jack lines. 3 flowers, two with color.

week two

Well, this is going to be a fast note as I try to get it into the blog before the next class.

 

This week we started with the flowers of last week. However we got to add colors after grabs.

After rolling it in the color we also had to put it in the glow hole before going back to the crucible.

We also learned to dip our hand holding the closed tweezers into the water to collect enough to prepare our objects for removal.

We'd then stick our objects in the anneallor and strike the punty.

 

We then moved onto paper weights. Did a couple of grabs. Added color. Mangled glass with tools. Did another grab. smoothed it with a form. put in a jack line to make the bottom. And dropped it into a pair of waiting heated gloves. From there it went to the anneallor

 

Last but not least they tried to teach us capping. Blowing into the blow stick and sticking a thumb over it to maintain pressure. Also learned sucking air did not cause us to burn our lungs.

 

 

Fwd: first week of glass blowing (continued)

We tried our hands at two different things:

 

Snowmen teach how to use calipers to make jack lines in your object. The calipers should be held vertically. If they are not even in relation to end of the punty, a spiral results. If your hand is further from you than the tips of the calipers you can push the glass out. If the calipers squeal, run them thru the wax.

 

Flowers gave us a chance to really feel the glass thru the tweezers. Pull little bits, At first perpendicular to the punty and later more away from yourself. Last pull is a long one with a slight push back as you turn the punty in a different direction to form the stem. Grab too much, and the glass cools to quickly. Still figuring out how much to pull. If it is cool it gets very difficult. We also used the diamond shears to cool the stem where we wanted it to break.

 

Retrying mailing a posting.

First time playing with glass (started, but not posted 2/10

Went to the Bay Area Glass Institute for the first time last night.

I had felt like a little kid all day: Is it time yet? Planned on meeting a friend for dinner in Japan town at Kazoo's beforehand. Turns out they did not open until 5, so she proposed eating downtown. After a series of you must turn rights, I wound my way there for some nice Italian food.

Showed up a few minutes early. Jon Scally was waiting with disclaimer forms and name tags. We were 4 students: Caley, Brad, Kristina and I. The second instructor was Mark Murai. There was much terminology - I am not there yet, so bear with me.

They started by giving us each a blowing stick and explaining it should rest by a balance point in your left hand. Where it changed colors it would normally be hot. Now you should keep this rotating (clockwise from the viewpoint of the blowing end). This should become automatic. You may want to practice with a broom stick at home. He then walked around the room introducing us to the various things in the room. Keep turning. Showed us dropping some glass into water. Smacked the fat end of the tear drop with a hammer. It was fine. Broke of a bit of the fiber and then when it was hit it turned to powder. Well let me tell you, after 45 minutes I was tired of holding this thing and turning it.

We then got to practice grabbing glass out of a bucket of water, before doing the real thing from the crucible. Sounded simple: Rest the punty on the edge. tilt the back end up, watching the reflection to judge distance, turn at least one around so that you do not have a v collar (oh the clockwise is to walk it into the corner as apposed to opening the door, which you are hiding behind, wider). Keep it turning. Remember arms and shoulders in a relaxed position. Keep turning. Maybe lift to push the glass off the end. Repeat to get more glass. The slower you are the hotter the pipe gets. They had this glorified thing kinda like a water fountain for cooling the punty if need be. Put it in from the middle and then pull the hot bit into the water. Remember, keep turning. Molvar(?) it in the air and then on the table. Start with the pipe low to help get the glass off the end where you want it. Did this a few times. Goal to make this nice cylinder of glass at the end of your punty. As the evening progressed and we went into our first project, we were encouraged to do it with more glass. I always felt like I was on the edge of loosing it. Then we were introduced to the bench and glory hole.

so much to learn

my first week's glass blowing efforts:




and then there is photography and blogging.

struggling with pictures

photoshop and adobe/kodak does not want to notice a modified file.
HP Zone and snapfish finds the file too big (over 5MB).
gmail fails to send it as an attachment.

next attempt will be saving the file w/o layers into a new file...
or maybe just putting the files here.