Back in the Gaffer's seat
The Gaffer is, in this case, the one driving when we're making something in the glass studio.
I got back to the glass studio last night for the first time in what I think might be 8 months, and rather than the potentially horrendous night of failed piece after failed piece, we knocked out 7 pieces between the two of us (2 paperweights and 5 vessels), and all of them went pretty much perfectly.
Alas, I think that the final piece that I made isn't going to make it through the annealing process (wherein the glass is slowly cooled down to room temperature). I made the bottom of the piece a little too thin for my comfort, and so I wanted to break off the little bit of glass holding it to the metal punty iron by dripping water on the glass-to-be-discarded so it would shatter easily. Instead, the water made it all the way to the thin bottom of my bowl, and cracked it instead :-( A network of 5 cracks erupted from the center of the piece. I aimed a blowtorch on it for perhaps a minute or two to try to get some of the cracks to mend, but I am unconvinced that it will work... but I can hope. It's one of the coolest bowls I've made so far, employing both a layer of color AND the inclusion of some swirly lengths of color (cane) supplied by my friend Michelle, who does glass beads and things of that size (she has a rockin' collection of sea creatures, and at this point TAs the sea creatures class at Corning) on a torch setup.
Pictures when I get the pieces back, but I'm very happy with how it all went!
I got back to the glass studio last night for the first time in what I think might be 8 months, and rather than the potentially horrendous night of failed piece after failed piece, we knocked out 7 pieces between the two of us (2 paperweights and 5 vessels), and all of them went pretty much perfectly.
Alas, I think that the final piece that I made isn't going to make it through the annealing process (wherein the glass is slowly cooled down to room temperature). I made the bottom of the piece a little too thin for my comfort, and so I wanted to break off the little bit of glass holding it to the metal punty iron by dripping water on the glass-to-be-discarded so it would shatter easily. Instead, the water made it all the way to the thin bottom of my bowl, and cracked it instead :-( A network of 5 cracks erupted from the center of the piece. I aimed a blowtorch on it for perhaps a minute or two to try to get some of the cracks to mend, but I am unconvinced that it will work... but I can hope. It's one of the coolest bowls I've made so far, employing both a layer of color AND the inclusion of some swirly lengths of color (cane) supplied by my friend Michelle, who does glass beads and things of that size (she has a rockin' collection of sea creatures, and at this point TAs the sea creatures class at Corning) on a torch setup.
Pictures when I get the pieces back, but I'm very happy with how it all went!