TUTORIAL
Encased Rainbow Swirl Pendant:
By: Joanna Mueller
Quick Tip: Remember to wave your rod in and out of the flame every now and again during this process. Even though it is boro, you will be painting stripes onto a rod and there is a chance of them “popping off” if not painted on hot enough.
Step 1: Take one of your boro colors and “paint” a 2 inch stripe down the length of the 6mm clear rod from the very top. Melt in slightly (just enough to know it will not pop off). Take your next boro color and repeat. You can use as many colors as you want, however, for the coolest effect, make sure to leave some clear “unpainted”.
Step 2: For this step you can either use another 6 mm clear rod, or a 4mm clear stringer rod… your preference. It’s time to encase all your “painted” stripes with clear glass. Begin covering each color stripe by “painting” the clear over each and every one. Then, you will also need to paint a clear stripe in the areas that had no color.
Step 3: Pick up another 6mm clear rod and melt it to the tip of the painted bulb you just created. Make sure the pieces are sealed together hot, not a punty. Once you have done this, remove from heat just for a quick moment until the glow is gone. Remember to keep your entire piece straight, don’t have the piece you just added at a large angle. Put the entire “bulb” of glass with stripes into the flame and heat slowly to a nice even red glow. Remember when rotating in the flame, at this point, to keep each hand rotating in the SAME direction while you are heating. Once your “bulb” is heated through and is workable, begin to rotate your hand in opposite directions making a “twist” in the bulb.
You can pull apart slightly depending on if you want the design to be tightly swirled, or loosely… the choice is yours. (It will take a few practices before you feel comfortable with this, and know what you like.)
Step 4: Now that you’ve twisted your bulb into a swirl design, it’s time to melt off the clear rod you added in step 3. I prefer to melt off all the clear and drill my hole right through the color other than have a large blob of clear at the top of my pendant… but it’s up to you. Once you have melted off the clear rod from ONE side of the bulb, it’s time to make your loop-hole. Bring the tip of the bulb into the flame and gently shape into a rounded end. (I like to turn mine upside-down for just a moment and narrow it up a little, however, again, personal preference). Once you have your end nicely shaped and smooth, bring it into the flame once more and give it a nice red glow (not drippy, but definitely HOT). Pick up your Peter’s Tweezers and press them together into the tip of your bulb. (Quick Tip: It’s important to make sure you’re not pressing your tweezers together too near the end of the bulb… if you do this, then the top of your loop will have less glass and be weak.) Once you have pressed your tweezers into the end of the bulb and you have a nice print in the glass, pick up your tungsten pick and slowly heat it in the flame. Then, quickly “drill” your hole through the imprint left from your tweezers.
(This can be tricky and it is usually the part where all newcomers have trouble, just keep practicing, it will come!) It is important to keep the glass warm but not molten when you are drilling the tungsten into it. IF your glass is too hot, the tungsten will stick to it, if it is not hot enough, you will have trouble getting the tungsten to poke through. Keep your tungsten at a little glow, but do not heat so much that it is fuming in the flame… HAZARDOUS!!!!
Step 5: Ok, so after a few trials and errors, you’ve managed to drill your hole…
Take a clear rod (I prefer 6mm) and punty up to the end with the loop-hole.
Remember, when you punty, you are heating the punty rod NOT the pendant loop.
Once your punty is on, bring the other end into the flame and burn off the clear rod of glass. Once you have done this, you can begin letting gravity and heat shape your pendant for you. I hold my clear rod in my hand with the pendant pointing UP into the flame. Important to remember NOT to heat the loop-hole while doing all this. If you do, you will distort your loop-hole and have to re-heat it and re-drill it. I let the heat shape and smooth my encasing into a nice bulby shape. (almost like a large jellybean with out the little dent in the middle) If you want your pendant smaller, just remove unwanted glass. Once shaped, and encasing nicely melted around, I like to raise my arm up and turn the pendant DOWN into the flame. I let it get hot enough to move, but not drippy. (hah! Can boro get drippy?) ………then I let gravity “pull” the pendant down slightly into an elongated shape. Or sometimes, I just leave it in a fat jellybean shape. You decide!
Step 6: Flame strike and when happy with color, gently grab your pendant with your looped hemostats and break off the punty. Turn your flame down to a medium point and “flame polish” and slightly shape the area where your punty has broken off.
Put in kiln and anneal…..
Take out of kiln when cool and wear your new rainbow twist pendant!!!
Now go experiment and let’s see those pictures!