Soft glass vessel tool

I've been working on how to make the stopper system work in soft glass. The main problem is the inside taper on the neck. This is my latest solution.
The tapered head fits on to a standard 1/4 inch blow tube. You dip the tapered mandrel head in bead realease and build your vessel on the end, a la Tink Martin. This gives you a neck that has an inside taper that matches my stopper making block. When you are done, you pull the vessel off with a kevlar glove and put it in the kiln. After it is annealed, you clean out the release, measure the size of stopper you need with the matching tapered reamer, match that to the right hole in the block and make a stopper. After it is cool, you use grit to make it fit exactly, takes about 30 seconds of grinding. Voila!
I have made many vessels like these in boro this way. My only problem with this is that I have not been able to find someone to make the tapered heads at a reasonable price yet. Apparently, small stainless is hard to machine. My two prototypes cost me $75 each!

More about vessels

I've been working on making and teaching vessels a lot lately. I think I'm getting better at teaching and have worked out a simpler small vessel style. For these tiny (for me) pendant vessels, I don't use my pivoting roller stand. And instead of coiling off the end of a tube, I wrap color up the tube. This gives a much stronger and even walled base to work from, which is a great advantage for beginners.
I just finished about twenty of these for a vessel exchange on Lampworketc. I have also finished the final prototype of my stopper-making tool. This works fine for boro, but I don't know how it would work for soft glass. I need to find a lampworker who works in both media to try this out.

-Don- the fyrsmith

Teaching boro vessels

I have been trying to work out a tutorial for small scale boro vessels, using still photos and it just won't come together. Working with a student in my studio, going through all the steps, I finally realized what some of the problems are.
When teaching a live student, I can say "blow a little harder", or "watch how the glass is moving when you get the heat base just right." These are things that just don't translate into still photos well, or at all!
Another factor is that in my previous tutorials, I was designing them for an audience who already had an applicable skill set. So I was showing how to make a specific object, knowing that my audience already knew the basics of moving the glass around.
While talking to my student this week about my problems with this project, I realized that soft glass beadmakers, even very good ones, don't have the set of basic skills for working with boro tubing. The timing is different, the way the glass moves in response to heat and gravity is different and even the tools are different. Lampworkers who do beads and small sculptures very seldom use puntys. All of which means that I first have to teach (as I did with my studio student) some basic things about blowing bubbles, using puntys, applying dots and wraps to thicken walls, graded heat base etc before we can even get to how to complete a vessel.
So, instead of saying "here is a tutorial on how to do boro tubing vessels," I need to say "here are a set of exercises to help develop the skills you will need in order to do boro vessels."
In retrospect, that is how I taught Zora (daughter and studio wench) to do vessels. Step by step, learning each skill until I could say, "now put it all together and make a blown vessel."
I think the light bulb over my head just came on!

-Don-

Tres jolie!

I've wanted a berry bowl with saucer for a very long time. Recently, I found just what I wanted on etsy at StudioElan http://www.etsy.com/profile.php?user_id=5001632 I opened it up today - beautiful! well made! and well packed for its journey from Ontario to Kodiak Island! And with a personal note! I love excellent customer service! Thank you so much. Eleanor, the potter at StudioElan has a blog, too, with behind-the-scenes pictures of her work. See it at http://eleanorhendriks.blogspot.com

What a great show! We just came back from a local production of Cyrano de Bergerac - complete with cameo performances from our Kodiak feature newspaper reporter, la boulangere de Mill Bay Coffee, and the dancing master. Amazing what a group of people can do to make a difference - there's a Margaret Mead quote about that, but googling around to find the exact citation will have to wait for another time - TTFN

Happy Valentine's Day!

My personal collection of heart jewelry (I live with 2 heart makers!) is rather extensive, so it was a small puzzle this morning to pick out the perfect piece for this special day. In the end, I chose a pair of small red heart earrings and a small black and red heart on a fine silver chain - sentimental pieces, which is exactly what the day is all about!

Check out the Etsy link to see the Gaia heart necklace pictured here.

Hearts and Roses

Look at these beautiful hearts with wire-wrapped roses. Don has been using both silver wire and silicon bronze to decorate his boro glass hearts. You can check our Etsy shop for more information and a chance to make a purchase. While you are over there look at Zora's heart necklaces. She made them all by herself! We are so proud of her work in the studio (and other places too!)

This afternoon, I bundled myself up against the cold and delivered some of Don's ornaments to The Next Page Bookstore - Kodiak's own independent bookseller. In addition to books, one can find lots of local art. The bookstore shares the building with Mill Bay Coffee, a cozy hideout on a blustery day!

If you can't easily get to Kodiak, you can see (and buy) Don's (Fyrsmith) jewelry and ornaments at Half Moon Creek Gallery in Anchorage and The Art Shop Gallery in Homer, Alaska. If you are in Hilliards, PA (a little east of Pittsburgh), check out The Glass Blowing Center run by Elaine and Tom Doner.

fyrsmith.etsy.com

I just posted this lampwork heart in the Fyrsmith Etsy shop. Something bright and cheerful on a grey day!

Simplify!!!

My new year's resolution for 2008 is one word: SIMPLIFY. Many years ago I wrote in one of my journals "Lately my life has been so complex that I have been unable to think simple thoughts. I must simplify my life so I can again think complex thoughts." Over the years I have applied this "simplify" principle when needed. It is again time to apply it.
One of the ways to do this is to journal ( or in this case blog) and watch myself thinking. It is amazing what one can learn about oneself by listening to what comes out of one's mouth, or by examining what one writes.

-Don- aka the fyrsmith