Moth
2005-09-07, 2:12pm
2883
1-Make a flat lollipop of glass with your mashers.
2-Spot heat this lollipop and use the scissors to cut into it along the gray lines in the picture. Your goal is to deeply impress the blades into the glass without cutting all the way through.
3-Spot heat and repeat the above step for the next set of gray lines in the picture.
4-Gently soften the entire leaf enough to make it pliable, but not soupy hot. Give a little extra heat to the tip, grab it with the scissors and as you cut into the tip of the lollipop, pull away from the body of the leaf. This will taper it out and bring it to a point.
5-Attach a clear punty to the tip of the leaf and heat the full sized rod of glass where it is attached to the leaf. Indicated by the red circle.
6-Pull the full sized rod down into a thick stringer. Burn off the rod where the blue flame is pointing in the picture.
Keep flashing your punty connection and the body of the leaf in and out of the flame to keep it from shocking the whole time you are working.
7-I like to switch hands at this stage. Gently heat the area of the 'stringer' you just pulled until it starts to droop down, heat it in the area indicated by the orange circle in the picture. Once it is at a right angle to the body of the leaf, let it set and slightly cool to where it is no longer moving.
Now gently heat the area indicated by the yellow circle in the picture to make the loop start to connect to the backside of the leaf.
8-Thoroughly join the tip of the stringer where it meets the back of the leaf. I like to mash this down a bit with my steel poker or a paddle to make sure it is really attached well.
Heat a pair of tweezers briefly in the flame. You want them hot enough not to shock the glass, but cool enough not to stick. Grab the loop of the leaf with the heated tweezers and burn or snap off the punty. Flame polish the spot where the punty was attached. Evenly heat the leaf, paying close attention to the loop and the tip. Pop it in the kiln and make some more!
Here are a few examples of leaves I have made with this method.
2886
2887
1-Make a flat lollipop of glass with your mashers.
2-Spot heat this lollipop and use the scissors to cut into it along the gray lines in the picture. Your goal is to deeply impress the blades into the glass without cutting all the way through.
3-Spot heat and repeat the above step for the next set of gray lines in the picture.
4-Gently soften the entire leaf enough to make it pliable, but not soupy hot. Give a little extra heat to the tip, grab it with the scissors and as you cut into the tip of the lollipop, pull away from the body of the leaf. This will taper it out and bring it to a point.
5-Attach a clear punty to the tip of the leaf and heat the full sized rod of glass where it is attached to the leaf. Indicated by the red circle.
6-Pull the full sized rod down into a thick stringer. Burn off the rod where the blue flame is pointing in the picture.
Keep flashing your punty connection and the body of the leaf in and out of the flame to keep it from shocking the whole time you are working.
7-I like to switch hands at this stage. Gently heat the area of the 'stringer' you just pulled until it starts to droop down, heat it in the area indicated by the orange circle in the picture. Once it is at a right angle to the body of the leaf, let it set and slightly cool to where it is no longer moving.
Now gently heat the area indicated by the yellow circle in the picture to make the loop start to connect to the backside of the leaf.
8-Thoroughly join the tip of the stringer where it meets the back of the leaf. I like to mash this down a bit with my steel poker or a paddle to make sure it is really attached well.
Heat a pair of tweezers briefly in the flame. You want them hot enough not to shock the glass, but cool enough not to stick. Grab the loop of the leaf with the heated tweezers and burn or snap off the punty. Flame polish the spot where the punty was attached. Evenly heat the leaf, paying close attention to the loop and the tip. Pop it in the kiln and make some more!
Here are a few examples of leaves I have made with this method.
2886
2887