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Old 2005-12-13, 1:51pm
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alexm alexm is offline
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Join Date: Jun 05, 2005
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
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Default Blowing Shards Tutorial

I’ve had several requests for a tutorial on blowing shards, so here it is. I have to first apologize for the quality of the photos. My friend took two digital cards worth of photos of me, but when I was transferring the pictures from the card to my computer the second time, my computer crashed and wiped out the second set. I chose the best pictures from the first set we did, but I have to warn you, some of them are blurry. I think they get my meaning across though.


To blow shards you’ll need a hollow stainless steel mandrel with a ¼” interior diameter. I use clear glass for blowing the shards. I think clear glass adds a luminous glow to the shards that opaque glass does not. Here is your chance to use up any scummy, bubbly or scratched clear glass. You will also need some frits. I use powdered or #00 frit and #1 frits.

I have played with making shards for a week now and did some research, but I am by no means as expert at this. Any glass blowers reading this will probably snicker.

It is important to avoid having “blowouts” when blowing glass. A blowout is just what it sounds like, you blow a hole through the glass. The reason you want to avoid this is that when a blowout happens, it spews a gazzilion tiny shards of almost microscopic sized glass particles in the air. You don’t want to breathe these in or get them in your eyes. The good news is that once you get it, blowing glass shards is easy to do and you won’t have any blowouts.

Start by applying a doughnut of glass to the end of the mandrel just as if you were laying down a footprint on a regular mandrel. You don't want any bead release, just a naked mandrel. You want the glass to be flush with the tip of the tube, but not going over the edge and obstructing the end of tube. It should look like a skinny doughnut bead.


I am showing three rather fuzzy pictures here, but I think you’ll get the idea.
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Alex Mironov

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BHB/PANDORA EXCHANGE IN THE PATIO

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