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Old 2008-05-04, 12:27pm
Heather/Ericaceae's Avatar
Heather/Ericaceae Heather/Ericaceae is offline
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Join Date: Oct 17, 2005
Location: Winnipeg, Canada
Posts: 1,375
Default Heather's off-mandrel star technique

Quote:
Originally Posted by cc2 View Post
I am such a loser, I need visuals. Can anybody show this step by step, or on a video? I would so love that. CC2
Okay, here's my best Paint-style tutorial!

Step one:

Make a big gather. Make it in one colour, many colours, fritted - it's up to you. Then, squish it into a lollipop. I like to use lentil-style mashers but flat works too.

Step two:

Cut the gather into five "petals" using steel scissors. I usually start with the centred cut at the tip of the lollipop, then do the two cuts on either side of the glass handle, then the final two between those. If you don't get perfect fifths, don't worry - you can pull off excess glass in later steps.

Step three:

Use a small paddle or, for faster results, a star masher, to shape the "petals" into rough points. Also shape the fins on either side of the glass handle.

Step four:

Punty onto one of the two points furthest from the handle. Go ahead and do a hot seal, since this join needs to be pretty secure!

Step five:

Make a loop by heating, stretching and looping the glass from the tip of the original handle-rod around to the back of the top star point. Once you've tacked the lop onto the back, flame-cut the connection point and free the original handle. (From this step on it will be used as a cold-seal punty to pull out the star points)

Step six:

(This image is a side view) Melt in the loop "tail" left from the handle and ream out the loop hole until it is a good size. Remember that the loop should stay *behind* the point, not at the top (if you want it to be "invisible".)
Now, heat the *front* of the looped point deeply and evenly. Warm the tip of your point-pulling punty slightly, then blow on the tip and barely touch it to the point just below the tip, on the front. Pull this out to a point and curve it slightly like a pinwheel. Blow on the connection point - if your cold seal was successful, it should just wiggle off. If necessary, you can nip it off, or as a last resort, flame-cut it off. Don't struggle with it or you can lose your current handle punty!

Step seven:

Pull and curve the other three points that don't have a punty. You can attach your cold-seal right at the tip of these ones because you don't have a loop to hide. This is the stage at which you would pull off excess glass if you have one or two extra-big points.

Step eight:

Flash your entire star in the flame to even out the heat. Warm a hook-shaped dental pick in the flame and insert it into the loop. Heat the connection point of the punty and try to stretch it out and curve the tip in one step. If this doesn't work you can remove the dental pick, attach another punty very delicately and fix your final tip, then re-insert the dental pick and release the final punty). Now get your finished star into the kiln, fast! You'll probably lose lots of them to cracking in the beginning, if you're working in soft glass (I know I did)! Good luck!
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Last edited by Heather/Ericaceae; 2008-05-04 at 12:39pm.
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