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Old 2005-12-13, 1:55pm
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alexm alexm is offline
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Join Date: Jun 05, 2005
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I’m now ready to blow it out. Heat the gob of glass in the flame until you have it molten, but not runny molten. The object here is to have the glass evenly hot and soft enough to blow, but not so hot that it’s out of control. A bright orange glow seems to be idea for me.

Take the glass out of the flame, take a deep breath and blow. It helps to blow downwards a little bit and to rotate the mandrel until the glass is cool enough that it doesn’t sag. You want steady, even pressure from your lungs, you don’t want to blast the air as hard as you can or else you’ll have the dreaded blowout. It will take moderate pressure from your lungs. Often the first time I do this nothing seems to happen, but I think what happens is that the air bubble inside expands a little bit without me noticing anything from the outside. Place the glass in the flame again and rewarm to a nice orange glow. Try blowing again. It often takes me two blows to blow it big enough. Remember, you want steady pressure, not a hard blustering blow. You should see the glass start to expand. Keep up steady, even pressure until it no longer expands.

These two pictures show a blown bubble and the broken shards. Notice that one side of the bubble is very thin while the other side of the bubble is much more solid. This happens sometimes and I think it’s due to inconsistent thickness of glass, so it’s important to wind the glass on as evenly as possible. Still, I managed to avoid a blowout this time. I had a picture of a much better bubble, but of course the computer crash ate that one.
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BHB/PANDORA EXCHANGE IN THE PATIO

Last edited by alexm; 2008-04-09 at 6:18pm.
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