Long time No BLOG

Ok here is the quick and sweet version of what all has been going on........


#1 work is hell in a hand basket on a rocket ship

#2 work so much no glass time

#3 last time in the glass shop was good but only one day due to going back to work at night and not being able to leave to get to the shop the next day.

#4 Then went to Florida to help out the bro.

#5 Got glass time there and made so many glass flower I think I could make them in my sleep.

#6 Brother got married ...poor guy :-)

#7 Came back to Cali and went straight back to work

#8 Still at work right now at 4:30 on a Friday when no one else is around.

#9 Next time in the shop will not be till the middle of November

Well here soon I am going to the bar to have a few drinks due to the wife being in San Fran wooohooo...............

Time.... What is time....

Ok here we go.... It has been a little while sense I posted so....


First of all I went to Florida to see the Brother and Parental Units. Then got back to work and it looked like a hurricane came through the office and everything had hit the fan out on the construction grade. Well for two day all I did was file and put out fires out on the grade to get the job somewhat going again due to all the problems that were there was running the other engineer to becoming a crazy loon that ran around pulling out his hair. After helping out and getting everything straigh I left for Montana. It was cool went to Yellowstone and saw some Elk and a Bison (American Buffalo) and the hot springs along with Old Faithfull. Then went to White Sulfur Springs to see the wife's parents relatives. Well lets put it this way, I thought my parents town was small (square mile) White Sulfur Springs is even smaller. :-) It seemed like it had more bars than gas stations and deli's combined. I have some Glass picture from before going to Florida but go to be home to upload them to the blog. Going to Florida again at the end of September for the Brothers Wedding. I will be there for a little over a week and get to blow glass again on the 10 and 11 of September. So that is cool. Well I am not sure who all looks at this thing and reads it from time to time so if you read this leave me a comment or something so I know.

Till then "Gravity is your Friend..."

Optic Mold Pieces....

Here are my new creation here with the new optic mold. I have made these two bowls. This one is mandarin orange, canary yellow, and steel blue.

This bowl is garnet red, mandarin orange, canary yellow, and some kind of light blue. I like these group of colors it turned out well. Just needed more red on the bottom but still turned out great!

Ok this is an iris Orange so they say but it does not turn orange in anyway at all. It seems like it is a great piece due to everyone likes it and wants it for some reason.

More Pictures...

Ok here is a Vase that I made at some point in time not really sure when it was made. It has Silver Blue in the inside and a light purple frit on the outside of the piece.




Ok I bought a new optic mold to use at the shop. Of course I was so excited to get the mold I forgot to even take a picture of the mold. But it is a 12" high 8b I think it is called it looks like the one posted on Gnat's page. If very fun to use....I have been making a lot of pieces with it. As you can see from the following pictures.
Above is a Steam Stick I guess you would call it. It was made from a paper weight to form a a bubble inside the paperweight. I made this so that I could place scented oil inside the piece and put in the house as an air freshener unit.

OK some pictures.....

Ok here is a little catch up here with the pictures....... This is a piece that was made by either me or my brother don't really remember. But it is a really thin piece. It was great that he had a chance to come out to California and see the shop that I get to rent out and hopefully he really liked it.

Ok here is a few more pieces from the same day that I made some glass here at the shop with my brother. Was one of the best times that I have had making glass due to showing my brother I am not a total loser at making glass and I do have a little skill.

Pictures

Ok I got some more pictures just not the time to post them right now. I will get them up as soon as I get some more time.

"Gravity is your friend...."

Sloth

more pictures

Well this I would have to say the biggest thing I have made yet and the heaviest. It is about 8 inches across and about the same in height. I has become a pot of a plant due to the nice size of it. It has a piece of silver blue bar stock and white powder on the out side. This was one of my attempts on the crackle look that ...... well did not come out but still looks good.

More Pictures

Here are some bowls that was done a couple weeks ago and I am just now getting it posted up on the page. The first one is a fushcia bowl it was the first one of the day so nothing fancy. The second one is a piece of red bar with white frit and heating it to the point of floppy and putting it in the optic mold. The last one is a something I am not even sure what the bar stock was but I am sure that olive green was the frit and of course it has a white lip wrap.

Catch up on Post..

Ok here we go this is an apple that I made for the wife's teacher. When she was subbing in the class she knocked off a pottery apple off the desk and broke it so this was the replacement of the one she broke.

Here is a fluted bowl that was made out of a piece of white bar stock and turquoise frit. Using the optic mold to make the lines.

Slacker....

Ok I know that I have been slacking on writing in post. I just need to make some time to get some pictures up on the blog. I got all kinds of stuff to post just no time. Maybe this week or this weekend, I can get the pieces from the last 2 sessions at the shop in here. Till then remember "Gravity is your friend.."

Paperweight "How to Do"

Had a question about the paperweights in the Febuary section of my blog, so here is how it is done. The paper weight is really easy to make. The core is just a gather with some frit melted down to make it somewhat solid. At this point you can do anything you want with the core to make it the way you want it to look. The outside is beach sand actually! It is from Pensacola, FL where I am from... LOL the funny thing is that is illegal to take the sand from the beach now. This came all about from Gnat when the hurricane came through and blew the sand up 11 stories to our parents condo. I decided to take some home when Gnat started to make the paper weights there in Florida. The guy here said that most likely the paper weight would crack if I placed the sand in it but he said go ahead and try. So I did and they survived. The spin in the paperweight is just an optic mold that after applying color or sand you just heat it up really good and place it into the mold. There are a few different ways that you can get the spin into the piece. Can you a block, marver, or use the diamond shears to spin the piece. In my opinion the easiest way is on the marver but a lot of people like to do it with a block. A little more advanced is the shears. Thus here are the steps in short:

1. Gather glass
2. Add color and reheat
3. Do what ever you want with the color to make the core the way you would like.
4. Gather again.
5. Add color again and reheat.
6. Heat it rippin hot and place into optic mold.
7. Reheat
8. Marve low to cool the section close to you then marve the top but don't go across the maver....marve in one spot you will see it start to spin.
9. Let cool and gather.
10. Block to desired shape and set jack line.
11. Cool piece and break it off.
12. Put it away.

You can place it into the optic mold as many times as you want it will give you many different looks to the piece. So have fun with it and try new things.

Sloth

Past Weekend

First things first...

This past weekend started off well. Friday night I got to make two small pieces due to no one showing up for the demo and Patrick the shop owner let me just play around. Thus I made Bonnie the apple that she has been buggin me to make for the past two times at the shop. It turned out quite well I was surprised. I also made a glow snot ornament. Which broke like all the others that I have made for some reason. Will post some picture when I find the camera again. Saturday was good will go into what I made when posting pictures. Now for Sunday started off good but ended in disaster. I got to find out how to crackle a piece like I want. I tried it 1 time and it turned out somewhat like a wanted but for some reason the cracks only went vertically no horizontal. This was very strange to me and Patrick which had never seen it do that before. That piece got dropped due to everyone telling me that my jack line was not off the pipe and I insisted that it was but due to being somewhat new I heated the crap out of it and jacked it about an inch from where it was. Then next thing I know when I heated it up for about the 3rd time after that it snapped off right at the pipe. And of course it was right where my jack line used to be thus I was off the pipe. The piece was so big that I could not heat the neck enough to keep it hot and the weight of the piece just snapped it off in the glory hole. It then could not be saved due to having to grab it with the pipe and chunking it into the shop so that it did not weld itself to the wall of the glory hole. The next one that I tried was a crackle again and I guess that I placed too much of the white powder on the outside so when I put in the water it did not crackle very well. I blew it out and then gathered over it really quick and it all went away. So I decided that I had some good pieces this weekend so I was going thin really thin. I got it to about 1/16 of an inch and it was everywhere and I was having fun. Spun it out almost flat and then fluted it. I went to pop it off and bam the whole bottom came off in one piece. The funny thing about it was that the bottom was about 8 inches around and it broke in a complete circle. Well I still have not got pieces from the shop so when I get them and find the camera I will post again. Till the "gravity is your friend and keep it hot..."

Sloth

One of the guys at the shop wanted to see how well it applied to a piece due to him never seeing nor working with the stuff. After messing with the glow snot for most of the day I decided to make one last one. A bowl with a glow lip wrap just to see how it would do when at a smaller scale.


This one was a bright blue lip wrap with a red inside. Now how this bowl ended up this was is strange due to when I put into the Lear it was fine. I asked the guy at the shop about the red that I used to make the piece and the first words from his mouth were "where did you get that color from" I pointed over to a box on the table where he told me that I could pick some colors out. He walked over there and there was one little piece left of the same red and he picked it up and threw it in the garbage. Then he stated that he thought all that red was gone and the reason was unknown why the red did not like the clear but he had used it a few times and it did the same thing and the pieces are still around and have not completely fallen apart. But I would have to say it is neat to look at that is for sure.



Here was the last piece of the day. Just an easy fluted bowl with fuchsia as the color. All I was doing here is to get something done and work on my bubble depth into the piece.

Now for some Glow Snot....

OK for the glow snot this is one of the first attempts for me at the shop using this stuff. It does not want to stick to the glass it is what I have also named moon dust. But as you can see below it does glow pretty well. Gnat has made a few pieces out of the same stuff and was told that the dust does not work as well as the frit! I don't know if this is true due to him not posting what he is now using for the glow snot he is making.

Here was my attempt at placing the Glow Snot into a bowl. I got all the colors that I wanted into the piece then slammed it into the optic mold. Then placed a bit of the orange glow snot in the depressions of the star optic. The bit was a pain in the butt due to it not wanting to stick to the glass .... Like the name state it is like snot and just slides off the piece. After blowing it out it does not seem to work very well maybe I should have placed more into the bit. I tried to take a picture of the glowing in the dark but it is so little that it does not show up in the picture.

Ok here is an ornament that I attempted to make but it broke. I took it home just to see how it glows. It is neat, this was the purple glow snot that is on the left. Then I made a mug with the orange again to see if it would be brighter than the last time. I loaded this piece up with Glow snot and ......Well it does not glow for crap. It takes all day to charge the piece and it glows for about an hour maybe and when it does glow it is not really that bright. I am interested to see if the frit does a better job.

Ok Newer Stuff...

Here is a fluted bowl that was made, the inside did not show up as well I wanted but it is nice. I don't remember what the inside was but the frit is adventurin green.




This is another fluted bowl, the picture is a little off color. But the inside is a light pink with olive green on the outside. It came out well besides what everyone one was thinking. Everyone that saw me make the piece was like those two colors are not going to look well together but..... It turned out pretty nice.

This is a favorite of mine also of the newest pieces that I have made it was made by using a white bar stock and then turquoise on the out side with a dark turquoise lip wrap.

A little Bit of time

Ok lets see what I can crank out here really quick due to have glass this weekend and having a ton of stuff to post!!!


Here we go ..... These are two bowls that I made they are not really big but they do what they are made for, which is a small quick bowl of cereal. The first one here is adventurian green on the inside and a little white on the bottom outside to give it a little contrast.


This one is also a small bowl but it was my first attempt at ever using a piece of bar stock. I was a little scare to do this due to watching many people do it incorrectly and watching them shocking the piece and dropping it into the furnace.





This one is one of my favorite pieces. It is not all that big but it is what I was shooting for when I made it. Don't ask what the color is on the inside due to it was a piece of stock just laying around the shop that I picked up and used. Ok this post has to be somewhat close to a big post will do more here soon.

Sloth

Season is starting up....

Ok my job is kicking in to gear and time is running out..... I have taken pictures of the glass but have not had the time agian to sit down and download them. I have a few pics of the glow snot and they are hard to get with this camera for some reason. Still waiting for bro to get back to me on when he is going to make it out here so that I can get the shop here for a day. I am looking forward to him getting out here. So that I can take some time off and also blow some glass with him here. Also due to my job he will see some of the stuff that I have done not only the glass but also what I do for a living soooooo till them "Gravity is your friend.."

Sloth

ok looks like pictures will load....

Ok here is the second attempt at a plate. Which actually turned out pretty well. I had never spun anything out so far besides the colored one from the previous post. Well now that I think of it .....I have yet to do it again. :-)
Ok this was a bowl that I made back at Saint Patric's Day glass bowling weekend. I would have to say this is one of my favoite bowls. It is accually one of my best peices also. It is about an 1/8 thick and about 10 inches around, 4 or 5 inches high. It has adventurine green on the inside so it has a nice glitter to the inside the bowl.
Here is my attempt at a set of a glass and a bowl. It is not a good attempt but an attemp. It is ruby red and iris gold in both the cup and the bowl.


Ok I got to take some more pictures of a whole second weekend. Then a weekend of glow snot glass. Till then "Gravity is your friend..."