Josh, me and Cal |
My buddy Ray, Josh and Cal |
Setting up shop |
Flame on! |
Prepping the tube, then into the kiln to stay hot |
Pulling the UV stringer for the ratty; cobalt blue stringer was next |
Cool shot - looks hot to hold, huh |
Out of the kiln, getting the tube hot |
Applying the cobalt stringer, first round |
Next the UV stringer goes on |
First round of stringer complete |
Melting the stringers in, getting it hot |
A few breaths, a slight twist is applied |
Laying on round 2 of the stringer, ratty begins to form |
Round 2 complete, ratty pattern is laid |
Top of the tube is twisted and removed, bringing the ratty to a fine point |
Finished pattern - how hard is it to FOCUS, darn!! |
But it's still a tube |
Let's get it hot again |
Sweet heat |
Sweet heat, part deux |
The view through the didymium lens - it really does help the eyes! (Sweet shot, huh!) |
Time to remove the extra tubing |
Blow tube is attached to end of glass tube, leaving 2 hands free |
Excess glass gone, disc left, and I STILL can't focus |
Heating the disc |
Red hot disc |
Gathering the clear to attach the lens |
Hot hand again - BIG fiber optics at work! |
Getting ready to bring disc and hot gather together |
Glass smush |
Time to heat it all together |
Blue to orange..... |
Hmmmm, looking good methinks |
Heating a gather to add to the backside |
Ready to start rounding |
Gotta get it good and hot |
Taking off some extra clear |
It's cool to see the ratty pattern in the flame |
Rounding it in the graphite marble mold |
Aaaah, there's that sweet ratty! |
Puntying up on the other side |
Adding the dark (almost black) base for the backside |
Backside is covered |
Will I never get this thing focused.... |
Adding the dots which will become pinwheels |
Melting the dots in |
Another layer over the dots |
Dots on! |
Fuming 24K gold on to the backside |
A tiny dot of gold will spray a layer of gold when placed in the flame |
Fuming complete - my gosh, did I get it focused?! |
A thin clear rod is used to twirl between the dots and produce the pinwheels |
The final heat and round-out |
Time for some cool flame shots |
Sweet pattern, can't wait to see it cold! |
The ratty side |
Loooking goooood |
Cool shot, errr - HOT shot |
Allllmost done |
One last punty switch |
One last application of flame |
Flame polishing the punty mark |
Finisimo! |
Time for the kiln, cold cool marble viewing tomorrow morning! |