How do you pull cane from broken glass?

[agross]

Okay, so I've done a lot of searching here, and I get the general idea of how to use scrap glass (such as broken bottles, stained glass, etc) to make beads. I understand that you use a punty and pull your own rods. My question is exactly how? Do you just use a mandrel and get it hot and attach the broken bits/melt into a glob/and pull? If so, what size of mandrel and how do you detatch the glass then from it?
I have used some stained glass that I scored and broke into strips, but there are always some pieces that are too small and of course I don't want to throw them away!
Something just isn't *clicking* for me with this idea so any suggestions would help!
Thanks a bundle in advance :)

Andrea

[chayes]

you could use boro rods to pull down soft glass

[twiggyinaz]

I use an old mandrel or a chunk of the glass.

If you put your small pieces on a graphite marver you can pick them up like frit with your molten glob.

Most of the time, I just use the glass as it is, in the strips that I cut. I use a lot of vintage stained glass that I was gifted.

I slump a small strip to see where the slump point is and anneal according to that.

Does anybody remember who has that really cool chart that matches slump points to annealing temps? I printed mine and don't have it on my computer anymore, I have had it for years and don't even remember where I got it.

[parisgal]

Have you ever pulled stringer? It is the same idea. If your scrap glass is large enough, hold part of it in the flame, make a gather and when it's hot use a mandrel to pull the gather into a rod/stringer shaped piece. You can break or cut the mandrel off when you're done.

If the pieces are really small, use a gather of hot glass to pick them up and melt that all together and pull that out the same way.

[yellowbird]

you may want to look at a thread called. ( I don't know how to add it here.)

"Making beads from a champagne bottle".

Let me know what you think? good luck.

[ArtcoInc]

Does anybody remember who has that really cool chart that matches slump points to annealing temps? I printed mine and don't have it on my computer anymore, I have had it for years and don't even remember where I got it.

I have this one on my web site:

http://www.artcoinc.com/glass_specs.pdf

Malcolm

[krisdaka]

Malcom,
Thanks for the link.. that is a very helpful page,
Thanks again

[agross]

Thanks everyone! I had looked at the champagne bottle thread but didn't realise it went on to 2 and 3 pages...got some more info from that!
Excited to try this so thanks for your responses :)