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Old 2013-05-16, 1:55pm
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Liquidsand Liquidsand is offline
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Join Date: Nov 10, 2012
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I guess technically the tube implosions are a kind of hybrid of the compression and implosion techs. (There's a tutorial in the Boro thread for newbies but I'm on my phone right now.)
I don't start them with a bubble; they are 4 rows of alternating dots on the very end of an open tube. The innermost ring of dots is right on the edge of the tube. You want a clean, even end to start with. I always use the pre- polished ends of my tubes for this, because it saves a step, but if you cut or open up the tube in the flame, as long as you use a clean, thickened edge it will work just as well.
I like to stack the dots with different colors get a little more volume in the implosion. Then you just melt in the dots with the same angles as a compression, closing up the end of the tube, and gently puff to get rid of the dimple which is inside the tube in this case, and flatten the bubble to spread the dots, heat the center to pull them all in to the middle. Put your backing color on and punty to the flattened end of the tube, heating and blowing just above your "disc" to make the glass thin enough to pop a hole and flame cut the edges. (This is known as a disc flip.)
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