Hard-Learned Glassy Lessons
 

....lesson #319 for me, LOL.

Don't put hot graphite reamer down on top of plastic-handled scissors...

Once melted in, don't try to remove...it breaks. Sacrifice $1.00 scissors, not $50.00 graphite reamer.

...that's my (duh) lesson for today.

Would anyone like to share their glassy "life" lessons? It would be valuable for some of us to read about them, before it happens to us...yes, I know they're common sense.

ooh - that sucks.

My lesson is to learn from other people's lessons :p

i must see this disaster! pictures??

Don't think it is a great idea to put your baggie full of murrini on the hot plate you use to warm your glass rods - I thought 'hey it will warm my murini and keep them separated.' Nah - the little plastic baggies melted!!! Good thing the plastic doesn't stick to glass!

I edited my original post to show the picture of my broken graphite reamer.

I think I'll try grinding what's left to a finer point...I don't use the thickest part anyway.

Nope, baggies on the hot plate = bad idea. Glad the murrini didn't stick...how did you get the plastic off the hot plate?

Never try to stop a hot marble in your lap (just let it roll)!! OUCH! Hehe

My hot plate is a buffet warmer and is glass so the melted plastic came right off!

Make sure when you put a shorty down and pick it right back up to use it that you pick up the right end!

After the torch is extinguished, it is still really hot! Keep this in mind when reaching hard to retrieve something from the floor. Best to pull the stool away from the bench, get off it, and crouch to get that blasted tool! Large burn scabs aren't the most flattering on anyone's face...

Don't use your mouth to hold hot stringer/murinni.

No. You can use your mouth - just be sure not to put the HOT end in your mouth. [-X


Gillian you can sharpen up the end of your reamer. Kinda like sharpening a pencil.

My lesson is take frit out of plastic bags and put it in something non flamable/non meltable if you are going to put it on your work area. Hot rod tips and flying shocky pieces WILL burn holes in the plastic baggie and when you pick it up frit WILL fall out of the holes.

A few years ago I was reaching across a coffee can full of glass rods and jammed my hand onto a sharp end, breaking off a piece under the skin. I ended up in the ER where the doc had to fish around a good long time to dig out the piece of stringer.

So the moral of my story is to not store glass with the sharp end up, or to be sure to melt the pointy bit into a rounder bit, or to walk around the table instead of reaching across.

hot glass looks like cold glass.

1. Wear shoes even when you don't want to (if you are trying new stuff and end up making unintentional frit and itsy bitsy glass shards that wind up lurking invisibly on your floor).

2. The shortest distance to opening your kiln to insert a hot glass item is not necessarily the best if it involves reaching in front of your lit torch (no injury here, just an ohmygoshthatwasanearmiss moment).

[-Xdont pull mandrels out of the kiln wid you bare fingers

if its your mandrel spinning fingers then you wont be able to torch for ages:rolleyes:

When torching with friends, don't reach across a table with 6 torches going to "help" or hand them something they asked for.....scars to back that one up.

Remember that stringers get shorter as you use them.

Also remember that telling yourself that the stringer you're using is long enough to finish what you're doing is probably not true!

* Don't etch your beads in a glass

* Make double-sure the cap is screwed on TIGHTLY before shaking your bottle of bead release



Both of these are lessons I can laugh about now :lol:

Don't try to make and pull silvered ivory stringer from rods that are 3" or less. Really clumsy if you're doing this with your fingers and not a rod holder. Had the worse burn ever on my hand because of this.

i've been making these hollow little jellyfish. the final step is to heat up the head and give it a little puff to round it out after removing it from the blow tube ,i seal the top of the head where the blow tube was and leave a tiny hole by one of the tentacles. to do this i use a section of 9.5 tubing to blow through. while inflating, i got a cramp in my hand and carelessly set the 9.5 tube down, then picked it back up and put the hot end to my lips......DUH!!! i put some cobalt blue around the end i blow through so that won't hapen again.

I think everyone must have done this at least once. 8-[

I ended up ruining a couch with bead release.

That's rule one...

rule two is "if it sticks to your fingers when you pick it up, it's hot glass"

I just learned one today! If you just can't wait for the murrini cane to cool, don't cut it into a plastic recycled sour cream container. It won't stay in there for very long, lol.

Keep in mind that some colours stay kind of soupy for longer than others. Therefore, when you put them into the kiln and they're still soft, and they touch another bead, you're gonna have a bugger of a time prying the two apart while holding the mandrels with pliers and yanking them into and out of the flame while trying to keep them warm and trying to get them apart while not wrecking them both and swearing a blue streak 'cause one was your best bead ever and....

My favorite, causing exploding glass and hysterical laughter... (That's what I get for torching with Sheryll...)

Trying to blow shards... Held my finger over the end of the blow hole so it wouldn't collapse... A little too long, it exploded instead, causing a huge BOOM and glass everywhere, with peals of laughter... Popped it just like a balloon... :hide:

My version of rule two: If there are smoking fragments of your skin stuck to the glass that you tried to pick up, the glass is hot. But don't worry it's all organic material and burns right off when you introduce the glass back into the flame with your uninjured hand/fingers.

Did this one just today. Got the blister to prove it too. :-?

:lol: Yeah, there's no stopping us, is there? Still have one hand? Good to go!

"It's just a flesh wound"