For those of you who have been kind enough to "follow" me, I'd like to explain the renaming of my blog. I've known for a while that I wanted to make lampworking a commercial endeavor, so I've been struggling with coming up with a good business name for myself. I was drawn to the elemental sensations of fire and water or fire and rain, but as lyrical as those phrases sound and the concepts they make me imagine, I haven't felt completely enamored with them.
It wasn't until today, when I was thinking of something else completely, that I realized I already have an icon that I've felt represents myself for over 15 years... the image of three cats dancing in a row, the middle cat dancing upside down. In 1995, at a wine festival, I found a t-shirt with that image drawn in a crude, child-like finger-painted design. The cat on the right was blue with a thick black outline, the cat on the left was purple, and the cat in the center was yellow. The left and right cats were on their hind feet dancing, the center one was upside down on his paws. The moment I saw the shirt, I knew that the blue cat was my Thea, a sweet, lady-like brown/white/grey tabby, the purple cat was my Violet, a small, grey, skittish tabby, and in the center, hamming it up, was my baby boy Walter, a huge, white, Maine Coone with a penchant for running into walls and eating plastic.
I loved this t-shirt so much, I wore it so frequently it literally disintegrated and I had to cut the front off and lay it in a box for safe keeping. Later, when I joined the SCA, I based my device on the image: three cats rampant. If only they'd let me put one of the cats upside down... but I guess that's what artistic license is for.
So today, after months of searching, I have found a business name that truly feels like who I am and what I love. A friend has already asked me why I didn't choose a name that shows I do lampworking, but I feel a more creative name was in order, a name that gives me the option to show off not just my lampworking skills but maybe my spinning, my weaving, my knitting, and any other ways I may decide to express myself.
So, I have changed my Blogspot name and address, I have my own URL at which I will share more of myself, and I will hopefully be getting banners and other artwork for my site and this blog. For now, please bear with the dust, as I'm making something I hope will honor the love I still have for Thea, Walter, and Violet. Too bad cats don't live forever. I miss you guys so much.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
What do you say when there's nothing to say?
Well, it's not exactly true that there's nothing to say. I already blogged about my torch, oxy-con, and regulator that have been shipped; and I've blogged about the glass labeling I've been doing; but now I can talk about the annealing we did today.
I'll be the first to admit I was wrong about my hubby chickening out of doing the annealing this weekend, but it didn't happen on Saturday as I had planned because, after going garage sailing Saturday morning, we ended up hiking down to Queen's Bath. We'd never really tried finding it, and had always heard it was a really hard hike, but when I saw that steps were sort of cut into the hillside I figured I'd give it a whirl. I had no idea what we were in for. Three hours later, soaking wet from the swim, sweating from the climb, parched from the heat, and ripped up from the broken shells in some submerged rocks we encountered, we emerged from the jungle physically broken and bleeding, but emotionally triumphant from our successful, invigorating, exhausting journey. I can't wait to go back, but with packs filled with several bottles of water, gloves and reef shoes, and hiking boots on our feet. Oh, and swimsuits. Definitely need to remember the suits. I'm sure there were several people that day that would like to forget some of the sights they saw. Oh, and there were sea turtles! Huge ones!
Needless to say when we came home yesterday we were in no condition to set up the kiln, but we did get a rain/sun shade set up, and today Jon annealed a batch of beads. I should have looked more carefully before starting this post, but it looked like some of the beads ended up getting devitrified in the kiln. I didn't even know that was possible. Jon suggested it might be the reduction flame the plumbers torch puts out, and if so, that's yet another nail in the coffin for the cheap gas kiln idea. I don't know how many beads were affected, but I'm kind of afraid to look now as this was no longer a test run, but a batch of some of my nicer beads. I'll do an inventory and post again later. I'll even take pictures!
I'll be the first to admit I was wrong about my hubby chickening out of doing the annealing this weekend, but it didn't happen on Saturday as I had planned because, after going garage sailing Saturday morning, we ended up hiking down to Queen's Bath. We'd never really tried finding it, and had always heard it was a really hard hike, but when I saw that steps were sort of cut into the hillside I figured I'd give it a whirl. I had no idea what we were in for. Three hours later, soaking wet from the swim, sweating from the climb, parched from the heat, and ripped up from the broken shells in some submerged rocks we encountered, we emerged from the jungle physically broken and bleeding, but emotionally triumphant from our successful, invigorating, exhausting journey. I can't wait to go back, but with packs filled with several bottles of water, gloves and reef shoes, and hiking boots on our feet. Oh, and swimsuits. Definitely need to remember the suits. I'm sure there were several people that day that would like to forget some of the sights they saw. Oh, and there were sea turtles! Huge ones!
Needless to say when we came home yesterday we were in no condition to set up the kiln, but we did get a rain/sun shade set up, and today Jon annealed a batch of beads. I should have looked more carefully before starting this post, but it looked like some of the beads ended up getting devitrified in the kiln. I didn't even know that was possible. Jon suggested it might be the reduction flame the plumbers torch puts out, and if so, that's yet another nail in the coffin for the cheap gas kiln idea. I don't know how many beads were affected, but I'm kind of afraid to look now as this was no longer a test run, but a batch of some of my nicer beads. I'll do an inventory and post again later. I'll even take pictures!
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Anticipation... is keepin' me way-ay-ay-tin!
I haven't torched in a few days, and while I'm craving gettin' my torch on, I'm also looking forward to having a new torch, with oxygen, and hot fire, and melty glass, and happy happy happy beads! Well, technically, in the popular vernacular a "happy bead" is a bead that's been properly annealed, but I'm sure they're much happier beads to begin with if they're made an an oxy/propane torch instead of a Hot Head. I can't wait to get my hand on that thing and just mold the glass rods into beads in a perfect oxygen rich flame.
And once we get the torch up and running, I'll start making so many beads I'll have to get the kiln electrified, 'cause I don't think that Jon is going to be none too eager to put a plumber's torch in that thing again. Considering what happened the last time, I wouldn't blame him either. I'll test my theory tomorrow and push for annealing the batch we were going to anneal last week. We'll see if we can get to Ace Hardware early enough to buy a good hose clamp, so we don't have a repeat of last week's debacle.
The update for today on "the project" is a picture showing what I decided to do to label my beads. I've heard of people using little price tags on strings, or organizing them in boxes, or even writing up note cards with pictures (which sounds kind of like the thing I would do), but I decided on a more direct approach. It all starts with a numbering system.
I have assigned a number to each color of glass I have. The assignation is random, I just picked up a glass and said, "You will be #1." I marked it with a sharpie (which I'm discovering will need some reworking because the sharpie rubs off if you handle the rod too much) and pulled a stringer or two from it, then marked the stringers with a piece of tape on the end (like a flag) and numbered with the same number. Then I made a grid:
And once we get the torch up and running, I'll start making so many beads I'll have to get the kiln electrified, 'cause I don't think that Jon is going to be none too eager to put a plumber's torch in that thing again. Considering what happened the last time, I wouldn't blame him either. I'll test my theory tomorrow and push for annealing the batch we were going to anneal last week. We'll see if we can get to Ace Hardware early enough to buy a good hose clamp, so we don't have a repeat of last week's debacle.
The update for today on "the project" is a picture showing what I decided to do to label my beads. I've heard of people using little price tags on strings, or organizing them in boxes, or even writing up note cards with pictures (which sounds kind of like the thing I would do), but I decided on a more direct approach. It all starts with a numbering system.
I have assigned a number to each color of glass I have. The assignation is random, I just picked up a glass and said, "You will be #1." I marked it with a sharpie (which I'm discovering will need some reworking because the sharpie rubs off if you handle the rod too much) and pulled a stringer or two from it, then marked the stringers with a piece of tape on the end (like a flag) and numbered with the same number. Then I made a grid:
| 1,2 | 1,3 | 1,4 | 1,5 |
| 2,1 | 2,3 | 2,4 | 2,5 |
| 3,1 | 3,2 | 3,4 | 3,5 |
| 4,1 | 4,2 | 4,3 | 4,5 |
| 5,1 | 5,2 | 5,3 | 5,4 |
If I were (un)lucky enough to only have 5 colors of glass, I would be making 20 beads (ah, the bliss!). The first number is the color of the base bead and the second is the color of the stringer. But, using the grid as a checklist only helps if you can then subsequently identify the beads you've made against the chart. That's where the next picture comes in. I'm so clever! I made this image so large so you could see the detail.
The sharpie works to mark the glass. You'll see B16 on the bottom; that means that the base bead is made with color 16. On the top you'll see an S5; that means that the bead was decorated with stringer in color 5. These are the same beads I showed pictures of the other day at my friend's house. Two colors of beads, and 8 colors of stringer.
And now, before the next huge batch of glass comes in, I'm gonna go organize the glass I already have. Baby and Hubby are asleep, so I get my "me time" -- starting at 11:19pm. Oh yay.
The sharpie works to mark the glass. You'll see B16 on the bottom; that means that the base bead is made with color 16. On the top you'll see an S5; that means that the bead was decorated with stringer in color 5. These are the same beads I showed pictures of the other day at my friend's house. Two colors of beads, and 8 colors of stringer.
And now, before the next huge batch of glass comes in, I'm gonna go organize the glass I already have. Baby and Hubby are asleep, so I get my "me time" -- starting at 11:19pm. Oh yay.
Friday, July 8, 2011
I feel like I'm in a Disney movie...
Mini? Cricket? Minor? Which torch do I get?!?
So, it all started a couple days ago when I played on my friend's Nortel Minor. I probably mentioned it, and if I didn't, too bad. I have been getting impatient with my Hot Head because it's so damn slow to melt anything because it's so cold. It doesn't have an oxygen line, just air intake vents on the side, so it doesn't have the FLAMING POWER OF O2 and it doesn't get hot enough to burn a burger let alone melt glass. Well, that's not exactly true, but it does take a firk-ding-blast long time! I can't make a tiny spacer in less than 8 minutes.
After working on the Minor (and the fire) I was complaining to someone on LWE chat about the Hot Head and they told me there was a bulk buy going on in the LWE garage sale forum for GTT Crickets and Bobcats. Ok, to make a long story short, I decided I wanted a Cricket, and then started discussing oxygen tanks with my hubby. After a few hours of that I started researching oxygen concentrators. This long story isn't getting any shorter, is it? To make a really long story only kinda short, today, after much angsting, I offered to buy someone's new Nortel Minor, oxygen concentrator, and the regulator and hoses to go with.
If you really want to know all the angsty twists and turns it took me to get there, then you're sicker than I am.
I'll be sending my father-in-law over to the seller's house tomorrow to pick those up. Oh, pick them up you say? Yeah, the seller doesn't want to go through the hassle of shipping, and the oxycon itself is such a great deal, and my FIL lives in the same town, that he's kindly agreed to pick the stuff up for us and ship it himself. Isn't he a great guy!
So, it all started a couple days ago when I played on my friend's Nortel Minor. I probably mentioned it, and if I didn't, too bad. I have been getting impatient with my Hot Head because it's so damn slow to melt anything because it's so cold. It doesn't have an oxygen line, just air intake vents on the side, so it doesn't have the FLAMING POWER OF O2 and it doesn't get hot enough to burn a burger let alone melt glass. Well, that's not exactly true, but it does take a firk-ding-blast long time! I can't make a tiny spacer in less than 8 minutes.
After working on the Minor (and the fire) I was complaining to someone on LWE chat about the Hot Head and they told me there was a bulk buy going on in the LWE garage sale forum for GTT Crickets and Bobcats. Ok, to make a long story short, I decided I wanted a Cricket, and then started discussing oxygen tanks with my hubby. After a few hours of that I started researching oxygen concentrators. This long story isn't getting any shorter, is it? To make a really long story only kinda short, today, after much angsting, I offered to buy someone's new Nortel Minor, oxygen concentrator, and the regulator and hoses to go with.
If you really want to know all the angsty twists and turns it took me to get there, then you're sicker than I am.
I'll be sending my father-in-law over to the seller's house tomorrow to pick those up. Oh, pick them up you say? Yeah, the seller doesn't want to go through the hassle of shipping, and the oxycon itself is such a great deal, and my FIL lives in the same town, that he's kindly agreed to pick the stuff up for us and ship it himself. Isn't he a great guy!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Glass Storage - The Undiscovered Country...
There are too many colors, too much glass, too many choices... How am I ever going to come up with a way to store it all?!?
I wish there were an "easy" button for decisions like this.
I'll edit later with the different options and a discussion of them.
Much later...
Oh, I almost forgot to edit this with what we decided to do. Here's a pic of the space...
We'll be putting something along that tall thin section of wall there, just above the back of the workbench. If I I better make it modular, in case I ever get a kiln that I'll be putting there. That thing that looks like a mailbox on the other side of my hot head is a mailbox KILN. Jon and I built it and it's currently gas (see the fire) so I'm hoping to convert it to electricity in the not-to-distant-future.
The thing we'll be putting along that wall will look something like this (hopefully less messy) or this (nice and neat!). Either way, I'll be happy to have my all my glass in one place. :^)
So, not much discussion, but at least I was able to make a decision about something!
I wish there were an "easy" button for decisions like this.
I'll edit later with the different options and a discussion of them.
Much later...
Oh, I almost forgot to edit this with what we decided to do. Here's a pic of the space...
We'll be putting something along that tall thin section of wall there, just above the back of the workbench. If I I better make it modular, in case I ever get a kiln that I'll be putting there. That thing that looks like a mailbox on the other side of my hot head is a mailbox KILN. Jon and I built it and it's currently gas (see the fire) so I'm hoping to convert it to electricity in the not-to-distant-future.
The thing we'll be putting along that wall will look something like this (hopefully less messy) or this (nice and neat!). Either way, I'll be happy to have my all my glass in one place. :^)
So, not much discussion, but at least I was able to make a decision about something!
An impossible task...
So, you might have been laughing at me for the last few days because you realized something I didn't really get until today, but this color sample project is not gonna fly. I just bought yet MORE glass today, another 25 colors! If I stick to this project religiously, I'll be making color sample beads until my 2 year old's grandchildren are having grandchildren! I don't even think my calculator has enough digits to figure out how many beads I'll have to make with all the glass I want to buy. So, yeah, color sample project put on hold. What do I do now?
Well, with all this glass I'm going to be buying I'm going to need a way to store it! So, off to the research races. Some people at LWE have been using this to store their glass. While really nice looking, I'm not accustomed to storing my glass laying flat. I'm not saying I won't do it, I just never have. But then, I've always had about a pound and a half of the stuff, so it's not like I needed much of an organizational system before now. And we just got done building new upright pvc glass storage, too, but it barely fits the 3 pounds of glass I have now, let alone the 7 pounds I just ordered today. Oh my, 10 pounds of glass. What WILL I do with myself?!? :)
The reason I splurged and bought so much glass is because Creation is Messy (CIM) is discontinuing a host of their colors, and a couple of my favorites were in that list of soon-to-be discontinued colors. CIM calls their glass "Messy Color". I just love that, it makes me want to eat it! Or run my fingers through it. Or something otherwise obscene!
When I checked out the Frantz Art Glass website to buy some of the colors, one of the favorites isn't even listed, but the other was, and since I hadn't bought any of that yet I decided to buy a pound, and then 1/4 pound of all the others that were going away soon. Frantz Art Glass has awesome sales, and these discontinued colors are about 60 or 70% off right now. I hate Frantz Art Glass, they make me spend way too much money!
In case you're curious, my favorite color is blue.
Well, with all this glass I'm going to be buying I'm going to need a way to store it! So, off to the research races. Some people at LWE have been using this to store their glass. While really nice looking, I'm not accustomed to storing my glass laying flat. I'm not saying I won't do it, I just never have. But then, I've always had about a pound and a half of the stuff, so it's not like I needed much of an organizational system before now. And we just got done building new upright pvc glass storage, too, but it barely fits the 3 pounds of glass I have now, let alone the 7 pounds I just ordered today. Oh my, 10 pounds of glass. What WILL I do with myself?!? :)
The reason I splurged and bought so much glass is because Creation is Messy (CIM) is discontinuing a host of their colors, and a couple of my favorites were in that list of soon-to-be discontinued colors. CIM calls their glass "Messy Color". I just love that, it makes me want to eat it! Or run my fingers through it. Or something otherwise obscene!
When I checked out the Frantz Art Glass website to buy some of the colors, one of the favorites isn't even listed, but the other was, and since I hadn't bought any of that yet I decided to buy a pound, and then 1/4 pound of all the others that were going away soon. Frantz Art Glass has awesome sales, and these discontinued colors are about 60 or 70% off right now. I hate Frantz Art Glass, they make me spend way too much money!
In case you're curious, my favorite color is blue.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Beads from my last session...
Here are the results of my labors at my friend's house. If my description of my color project confused you, this image will probably help.
As you can see, there are three "sets" of beads. The bottom one is just a little fun I had with Devardi glass (if I recall correctly; I guess I'll have to ask my friend and edit this post if I'm wrong). The top two sets are part of my color project. You can see that the base beads of the first set is green, the base beads of the second set is orange, and supposedly, I used the same set of stringers for each. Besides the fact that I made one less bead for the greens, it appears that the green glass of those beads reacts quite differently than the orange glass does. It's hard to see because the lighting conditions weren't good, but there's a lot of crackling in the stringer decoration on the green beads. But that, my friend, is the exact reason I'm doing this project: to see how the different glass colors interact.
Even though I missed making one green bead (and now I can't actually tell the difference between some of the stringer colors!!!) I consider this first session a rousing success. It taught me that 1, mark the mandrels somehow so I know which stringer I used (or maybe keep the stringer the same and make the base bead in all the different colors), and 2, that green I used causes the stringer to go all crackly, which is an effect I like, but if I'm not trying to do it, I should keep away from the green or only do raised stringer with that color.
As you can see, there are three "sets" of beads. The bottom one is just a little fun I had with Devardi glass (if I recall correctly; I guess I'll have to ask my friend and edit this post if I'm wrong). The top two sets are part of my color project. You can see that the base beads of the first set is green, the base beads of the second set is orange, and supposedly, I used the same set of stringers for each. Besides the fact that I made one less bead for the greens, it appears that the green glass of those beads reacts quite differently than the orange glass does. It's hard to see because the lighting conditions weren't good, but there's a lot of crackling in the stringer decoration on the green beads. But that, my friend, is the exact reason I'm doing this project: to see how the different glass colors interact.
Even though I missed making one green bead (and now I can't actually tell the difference between some of the stringer colors!!!) I consider this first session a rousing success. It taught me that 1, mark the mandrels somehow so I know which stringer I used (or maybe keep the stringer the same and make the base bead in all the different colors), and 2, that green I used causes the stringer to go all crackly, which is an effect I like, but if I'm not trying to do it, I should keep away from the green or only do raised stringer with that color.
Monday, July 4, 2011
OMG I had so much fun!
I am fortunate to have a friend who has a great lampworking setup, and she invited me to come over today and play on her Nortel Minor Burner torch. I currently have a Hot Head torch, and while satisfactory, it's very slow to melt glass and tends to have a reducing flame (since it only uses propane and "hopes" that the air intake holes on the side are sufficient for adding oxygen to the flame). But, the Minor, wow! I've played on her Minor before, but I hadn't had sufficient practice on my own torch or read enough online to really comprehend what kind of benefits I'd get from the Minor. Today, though, I felt like I was owning the flame. Like I could make it do for me anything I wanted.
I had planned to try to do some encasing today on the Minor since Hot Head's suck for encasing, but after the fire we had yesterday (a totally separate blog entry will have to be written up for that) I decided to take advantage of the Minor to start making beads for my project. I still have a few stringer I need to pull, but I really wanted to get started on those beads. AND... my friend has a CG BEADROLLER! Whoohoo! I actually got to play with the small donut roller the whole time, and yes, it is even better than I would hope. I was able to use it to size my beads while still molten so I could make consistently sized beads. (I'm really bad at that.) It was a dream to work with, and I'm going to order one as soon as I wake up in the morning.
Getting tired. I wanted to say so much more but it will have to wait til morning. But I will say this:
Watching the Minor's flame on the bead was like watching water smoothly carve a rock into the beautiful shape hiding beneath the surface.
I had planned to try to do some encasing today on the Minor since Hot Head's suck for encasing, but after the fire we had yesterday (a totally separate blog entry will have to be written up for that) I decided to take advantage of the Minor to start making beads for my project. I still have a few stringer I need to pull, but I really wanted to get started on those beads. AND... my friend has a CG BEADROLLER! Whoohoo! I actually got to play with the small donut roller the whole time, and yes, it is even better than I would hope. I was able to use it to size my beads while still molten so I could make consistently sized beads. (I'm really bad at that.) It was a dream to work with, and I'm going to order one as soon as I wake up in the morning.
Getting tired. I wanted to say so much more but it will have to wait til morning. But I will say this:
Watching the Minor's flame on the bead was like watching water smoothly carve a rock into the beautiful shape hiding beneath the surface.
Crappy Chinese manufacturing coupled with a Hot Head from a bad batch...
We had a fire. It appears that the hose connected to my torch softened at the connector to the torch and blew off while we were in the middle of using it. From all appearances, the reason the hose softened was the torch got hot all the way to the torch/hose coupling, and the reason the hose came off was that the hose wasn't clamped tightly enough to the barbed fitting by the manufacturer.
Here's a picture of the culprit:
I jumped back quickly enough, but there was flame spewing out the end of the hose. We were able to put the fire out relatively quickly with the fire extinguisher and turned off the tank. When I was working with the torch night before last I noticed the valve knob was hot, but I didn't think it was THAT hot, and today the hose coupling failed, and we had a fire.
I'm lucky there wasn't any appreciable damage. We were using the torch for our kiln, and the tent shelter we set up for the kiln was the only thing that was damaged. We needed to get a new tent anyway.
(I wonder what our guardian angel's name is. He does good work.)
Here's a picture of the culprit:
I jumped back quickly enough, but there was flame spewing out the end of the hose. We were able to put the fire out relatively quickly with the fire extinguisher and turned off the tank. When I was working with the torch night before last I noticed the valve knob was hot, but I didn't think it was THAT hot, and today the hose coupling failed, and we had a fire.
I'm lucky there wasn't any appreciable damage. We were using the torch for our kiln, and the tent shelter we set up for the kiln was the only thing that was damaged. We needed to get a new tent anyway.
(I wonder what our guardian angel's name is. He does good work.)
Saturday, July 2, 2011
There's stringer, and then there's STRINGER
Still making stringer, but when I was about to start this morning's batch I realized I'd have to label the stringer for easier identification. I have two very close shades each of orange, yellow, red and green, and even though they're distinguishable in the rod, the stringers side by side are almost identical. So, I came up with a simple numbering system for the rods and put a little flag of tape with the number on the corresponding stringer. This project is all about doing way more work than I have time for, so why not add a couple more steps?
As I go through and melt the glass to make the stringer, I'm trying to note differences in the glass, but I'm having a hard time noticing differences. It's all glass, it all melts, it droops if you don't keep turning it, but I can't see many more differences as I'm melting the glass?
I did notice a difference between my two shades of turquoise. One shade was really easy to work with, didn't melt too fast or too slow, and when I pulled the stringer, it pulled nice and easy, but the other shade of turquoise was so soft, very liquidy when it melted, I had trouble controlling the droop even though I was turning the rod constantly when forming my initial gather of glass. Then when I pulled the stringer, the droop drooped and I ended up pulling a very uneven stringer. That second turquoise also reduced (I think that's the word) in the flame much easier than the first turquoise, and I ended up with some copper red in the stringer.
I guess I'm just not very good at discerning the various working characteristics of the different colors, but that's what this project is all about. Making a permanent record of how the colors interact, and hopefully through this process I learn more about how to work glass in general.
As I go through and melt the glass to make the stringer, I'm trying to note differences in the glass, but I'm having a hard time noticing differences. It's all glass, it all melts, it droops if you don't keep turning it, but I can't see many more differences as I'm melting the glass?
I did notice a difference between my two shades of turquoise. One shade was really easy to work with, didn't melt too fast or too slow, and when I pulled the stringer, it pulled nice and easy, but the other shade of turquoise was so soft, very liquidy when it melted, I had trouble controlling the droop even though I was turning the rod constantly when forming my initial gather of glass. Then when I pulled the stringer, the droop drooped and I ended up pulling a very uneven stringer. That second turquoise also reduced (I think that's the word) in the flame much easier than the first turquoise, and I ended up with some copper red in the stringer.
I guess I'm just not very good at discerning the various working characteristics of the different colors, but that's what this project is all about. Making a permanent record of how the colors interact, and hopefully through this process I learn more about how to work glass in general.
Sorting stringer...
I just spent the last few hours sorting and making new stringer. I had to sort the stringer I had so I'd know what colors of stringer I needed to make, but damn is it hard matching some stringer to the original rod. Once the glass is that thin it's hard to tell whether it's this shade of orange or that shade of orange. I actually had to get Jon's help with it, but I don't know if that just confused me more.
I ended up with about 5 or 6 colors that I already had stringer for, then I turned on the torch and made stringer out of 9 more colors. I chose the number 9 because of it's awesome significance: that's how many divots I have in my rod rest! Once I filled up my rod rest with possibly-hot rods, I didn't want to mess around with laying additional rods on the rest and risking dropping hot rods on my workbench. Safety tip: lay some sort of sheet metal along the ENTIRE top of your work bench, not just underneath your torching area, so you don't have to worry about hot rods setting fire to your table top, like me.
I ended up with about 5 or 6 colors that I already had stringer for, then I turned on the torch and made stringer out of 9 more colors. I chose the number 9 because of it's awesome significance: that's how many divots I have in my rod rest! Once I filled up my rod rest with possibly-hot rods, I didn't want to mess around with laying additional rods on the rest and risking dropping hot rods on my workbench. Safety tip: lay some sort of sheet metal along the ENTIRE top of your work bench, not just underneath your torching area, so you don't have to worry about hot rods setting fire to your table top, like me.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Crazy doesn't even begin to cover it...
You might call me a pyromaniac, but I like to call myself a lampworker. I make beads out of glass. Molten glass. Glass which didn't start off molten, but which I put into a 2000 degree flame and melt to molten so that I can make beads. You might call me a pyromaniac, and you'd be right.
On top of that, I'm anal.
I started a lampworking project today. It's a project I've been hoping to avoid because it was going to be a metric ton of work with no obviously apparent benefit, but if you listen to some of the people on the Lampwork Etc. discussion boards, no time at the torch is wasted and every bead is a lesson learned. So, with that thought in mind, and hoping beyond hope that I can afford all the glass that goes into this project, I begin.
Goal: To learn how the different glass colors interact with each other on the surface of the bead. For a couple months now, when I sit at the torch, I've been trying to just pick a glass rod of some mostly random color and apply some stringer of some other mostly random color to see how they go together. Problem is, it hasn't been going so well. Either I end up always picking the same few colors (that are my favorites) or I forget what colors I used on the bead because some interactions are so dramatic they change the colors altogether.
This is how my lampwork sessions usually end up:
So I've made a plan to make a bunch of beads of one of the colors of glass I have and apply a simple decoration of stringer of each of the other colors I have to see how the color combinations work out. I imagine it's sort of like shuffling a deck of cards, but with fire and molten glass. In triplicate. 'Cause I'm going to do this sampling with each of the colors. At last count I had 32 colors, so that's 32 sets of 31 beads each. How many beads will I end up with? 992!
Besides the massive amount of time it's going to take just to make enough stringer out of 32 colors of glass, I've already encountered a bigger problem. I just ordered more glass. More glass usually means more colors. How many more beads will I end up with using these 4 more colors? Mr. Calculator says 268. *sigh*
Ok, I'll start with what I have, make a bunch of stringer, and see where it takes me. Obviously I can't put a hold on my plans to make sell-able beads - I'd never get around to it if I just kept making color sample beads - so I'll just have to keep two sets of glass, one for the color samples and one for the sell-ables, and just spend time each day making both. (I think I need two sets of glass so I can keep track of which colors I already made samples of.)
Torch it!
On top of that, I'm anal.
I started a lampworking project today. It's a project I've been hoping to avoid because it was going to be a metric ton of work with no obviously apparent benefit, but if you listen to some of the people on the Lampwork Etc. discussion boards, no time at the torch is wasted and every bead is a lesson learned. So, with that thought in mind, and hoping beyond hope that I can afford all the glass that goes into this project, I begin.
Goal: To learn how the different glass colors interact with each other on the surface of the bead. For a couple months now, when I sit at the torch, I've been trying to just pick a glass rod of some mostly random color and apply some stringer of some other mostly random color to see how they go together. Problem is, it hasn't been going so well. Either I end up always picking the same few colors (that are my favorites) or I forget what colors I used on the bead because some interactions are so dramatic they change the colors altogether.
This is how my lampwork sessions usually end up:
So I've made a plan to make a bunch of beads of one of the colors of glass I have and apply a simple decoration of stringer of each of the other colors I have to see how the color combinations work out. I imagine it's sort of like shuffling a deck of cards, but with fire and molten glass. In triplicate. 'Cause I'm going to do this sampling with each of the colors. At last count I had 32 colors, so that's 32 sets of 31 beads each. How many beads will I end up with? 992!
Besides the massive amount of time it's going to take just to make enough stringer out of 32 colors of glass, I've already encountered a bigger problem. I just ordered more glass. More glass usually means more colors. How many more beads will I end up with using these 4 more colors? Mr. Calculator says 268. *sigh*
Ok, I'll start with what I have, make a bunch of stringer, and see where it takes me. Obviously I can't put a hold on my plans to make sell-able beads - I'd never get around to it if I just kept making color sample beads - so I'll just have to keep two sets of glass, one for the color samples and one for the sell-ables, and just spend time each day making both. (I think I need two sets of glass so I can keep track of which colors I already made samples of.)
Torch it!
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