If you are doing spoons as production or even as fun the cold seal to the mouth piece is a bad idea for several reasons. 1 its and extra step and is setting yourself up to fail. 2 its a bandaid to learning a proper Technique such as tearing it open with a rod or pulling the mouth piece off and clipping it with cutters and cleaning it up. Something i always tell people is the fundementals in learing to make a great spoon are the stepping blocks to moving onto bigger and better things. Learning to tear tubes open both on axis and of axis is very valuable down the road especially if you want to get into more complex scientific pipes. While i see finding a solution to the problem cool I find working through the issue and not giving up and learning to do the process in multiple ways even better....

To make a basic spoon i weld a piece of 26 heavy wall onto a 12 mm blow tube. I make sure the weld is nice and clean and everything spinning true and centered on axsis. If your piece isnt centered FIX IT. I will then heat the mass that will become the body and condense it down and pull it into shape and finish shaping the mouth piece making sure the transition between the blow tube and mouth piece are fairly thin. Keeping this area thin will allow you to come back to this area and tear it off withotlut kiln time. I then condense and shape the bowl section pop the bowl hole, press the bowl, pop akd shape the carb, flatten the bottom and add some cool grippy dots or swirls opposite side of the carb. Warm the gabbers up grab by the head and tear off the blow tube. I keep the piece rotating and with a cold punty to pull out the excess glass. Most people get this area too hot and continue to pull down glass off the mouth piece into the hole area. Once you have the area thin with a sharp flame plung your cleaned off cold rod pull out and repeat if needed then clean up the edge if need be and ream open to size. I can take some pics of the process if need be.

Thank you. I'll try that! Pics will be coming soon.

This is why my first attempts at spoonies end up less than 3 inches long. I keep tearing and tearing glass and the pipe gets shorter and shorter. I'll keep practicing.

if you are tearing off your mouthpieces each time you try and its getting shorter then you are heatinf up too much glass. When tearing open a hole you only want to heat up the smallest of the center and not out onto the hip or shoulder. Try tearing open the ends of some 12-16 mm tubing and do it till you get 10-12 in a row.

Here's my 1st attempts at making spoon pipes. Actually they are number 4 and 5 but no one is ever going to see the 1st 3 tries!

Pretty. Bowl hole WAY too big. I don't know how to fix that... maybe someone more experienced with troubleshooting can chime in for ya.

Yes, I panicked when the bowl hole started closing down and when I pushed the bowl in, it stretched out. It's a learning process. I thought about making some matching jacks or daisies for it. But in all reality, it will sit on the shelf with my other "firsts" so in years ahead I can look back and consider hiding my pitiful first attempts.

It's very pretty. The over grown hole is nothing a good metal screen wouldn't fix. :love: Angelique

that's a mortal sin! no metal screens in glass pipes! it defeats the purpose of glass. tastes like shit.

:lol: Back in the day I used to use metal screens in glass pipes. I personally didn't think it made anything taste bad but then again I wasn't much of a smoker either. Once or twice on a weekend. :love: Angelique

^ This

Not to say that it can't be done as an expedient - but better to do it right ;)

oh we all have i'm sure! and soda cans, apples. we're a very resourceful bunch.

When you go to push your bowl heat the area outside of and around the bowl hole trying to keep as much of the flame off the hole iteslf as you can. That way it doesnt stretch your bowl hole or thin out the floor of the bowl.

I remember having a socket set thanks to my dad came in quit handy lol ah the glories of being a mechanic lol

I have a bowl push and about 20 different sizes of graphite rods. I've been spying Dh's sockets too though. Can.Never.Have.Too.Many.Tools.

Serendipity, I think the only way to fix a pack hole is to melt it all back out again and redo it. You're just not pushing your push down straight, it'll get easier pretty quick. I don't really ever fix anything I just sell it cheap and try again next time. Those will sell, no question. Good stuff for sure!

Oh, the 1st 3 pipes that I made, the holes were just fine. But while I was learning to tear the mouthpiece open, the pipe got shorter and shorter and shorter until it was only about 2 inches (max) long. So, I can do the holes well, I can push the bowl correctly, I can tear a decent mouthpiece - just need to get to come all together in one piece. Soon, very soon.

One piece of advice I read here - always finish the piece, you'll learn something from each "failure". Thanks Bunyip! I happy to say that in my 1st year of lampworking, I've only water annealed 1 bead and that was because absolutely NOTHING was working that session, so I water annealed from pure frustration and turned off the torch.

HAHAHA story of my life.. at least in lampworking.

I'm not saying to not finish the piece. What Im saying is if you elongate a pack hole like you did, don't go back and fix it. Think about what you did and how to do it correctly next time. Unless your not concerned with time management and money. Then go for it. Its a good skill to know how to do. But, in the time it takes you to fix the problem you could be well on your way to making a new and better piece. In production mode anyway. Its just not worth it. Always finish something, not to is stupid.

Yep that way its always there to stare you in the face and remind you lol

I can't take full credit for that. I'm just paying it forward =) Jennifer Geldard was the person who really taught me that!

Well it's been awhile, but in case you're still curious, look for skunk cabbage . . . in this case I think it's being used euphemistically : D