Optic mold tips?

[cherie]

I bought an optic mold and followed a tutorial (Kimberly's?) that is on Jeffs old site. The tutorial is great for making twisties..I can finally do that, but my canes are coming out very small..around 2mm...I know I need to pull slower, wait longer for the glass to cool, but how thick is your blob of glass on the end of your mandrel?

I have tried the heart mold a few times and it still seems so little after encasing the finished heart twice. How thick in diameter are your finished canes after pulling?? My little hearts when applied to a bead I can barely see they are so tiny. Any tips? This may seem like a silly question? Anyone get a nice decent cane on the first, second or third try?

[Quicksilverart]

If your canes are coming out too tiny, try blowing on the glass as you pull to cool it and pull very slowly. Doesn't matter how much glass you have as an initial pull. It's all in the control. Wait....then wait some more...then pull. If it comes out too thick, you can always pull down smaller. Patience and practice. You can do it. Go try again!

[Karen Hardy]

HOLA!!!
That's MY tutorial on Jeff's site!

And yes - it's all about practice practice practice (yes, I hate the PPP thing too but it sucks and we all have to do it).

The more practiced you become, the slower you will be able to work and
feel comfortable with. Believe you me, when I first started I whirled that
mandrel around like a Cuisinart blade. I was flinging glass everywhichway.

Carolyn is right. If the blob starts to get out of hand, then blowing on it will
get it under control. When you first start doing canes, there is this fear of not getting it hot enough - so you heat the crap out of it until it finally becomes too gloppy to work with. WRONG :sad:. It takes PPP (again) but you put it in the flame to heat it....take it OUT of the flame to let the heat SINK into the blob to the center....then you gently warm the blob...take it out
again, let it get a nice skin on it and pull slowly. You can also blow AS you
are pulling if it starts to get too thin.

Don't worry about it not being thin enough - you can ALWAYS make a cane
thinner. You can't ever make it thicker.

Clear as mud?

[cherie]

Opps..sorry about that..It was Karen who did the tutorial..not Kimberly...Awesome tut. by the way...I used up all of my shorts pulling twisites w/ the tutorial you created..I dont seem to get as much shockiness in the twisties..maybe because they are so tight? Im not sure.

As I said I did a bunch of twisties, so Im going to try the canes again..but dang does it ever use up a lot of glass..I wouldnt mind so much If I knew they would come out decent.

Anyhow, Thank you for your replys!

[Sherry]

One thing that I find helpful is to pull the cane in stages. Especially if I've used the steinert, the gather is pretty big, and there's no way that I could do one pull.

So after getting the gather built, I heat about 1/4 or 1/3 of the gather, and get a pull. I dip my pliers in cold water and break the cane, then repeat. You need to keep the whole gather hot by flashing, but only keep part of it hot enough to pull. I pull with pliers, by the way, not a punty, and my cane is perfectly round, but this takes practice too.

[Karen Hardy]

As for saving glass - don't forget to use waste glass on the "caps" on each
end. All the good glass should be in the blob in the middle. I usually
use clear for the waste glass (and I usually use the gunky clear that's
left over from the last pull). That way there's no waste.