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Tips, Techniques, and Questions -- Technical questions or tips

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  #31  
Old 2013-05-03, 7:24pm
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Hey Gems I'm listening. Just ordered a pair of magnifiers. Hope it helps my old eyes. Do you wear your didys under these?
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  #32  
Old 2013-05-03, 7:32pm
jconsidine11 jconsidine11 is offline
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Patti,

I got contacts just for lampworking when I realized things were not as I thought

they should be.

I was prescribed a set that has one close up lens and the other is for far away.

These have been working great underneath my didymiums.

Good luck!

Joan
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  #33  
Old 2013-05-03, 9:14pm
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Sounds like all is not lost and I feel hopeful again!

Clan Tabby - It is my understanding that after you encase, you have to heat it up to get the bead round again. I don't heat it to dripping lava, so I don't know what's going wrong. Not that it's horribly misshapen, just not as nice as others I've seen. Not even close, lol!
You guys are so sweet, thank you.
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  #34  
Old 2013-05-04, 4:41am
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Hi Kat, hope it helps. Yes I wear both my reading glasses and didys under them.


Quote:
Originally Posted by glasslass2 View Post
Hey Gems I'm listening. Just ordered a pair of magnifiers. Hope it helps my old eyes. Do you wear your didys under these?
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  #35  
Old 2013-05-04, 7:59am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by truegem View Post
Sounds like all is not lost and I feel hopeful again!

Clan Tabby - It is my understanding that after you encase, you have to heat it up to get the bead round again. I don't heat it to dripping lava, so I don't know what's going wrong. Not that it's horribly misshapen, just not as nice as others I've seen. Not even close, lol!
You guys are so sweet, thank you.
Ah. I thought you were supposed to heat & shape the encasing, but pretty much leave the original glass unaffected by more heat. I've never been able to figure out how to do that; I always end up with the whole bead glowing when it goes into the kiln.

I hope you've got an eye appointment by now. I'm currently waiting on a new pair I ordered for crocheting. My distance difference between reading & crocheting is not huge, but significant enough that using reading glasses has really been stressing my eyes. I've come to understand how vitally important having the correct focal distance set for glasses is. So now, for close-up stuff, I'll have glasses for crocheting, reading & computer. Seriously. And I really do need them all. So be sure to have a really good idea what the focal distance of the major part of your torching is. The next time you are torching, have a measuring tape with you & measure the various distances you work at so you'll be able to give that information to the optometrist.
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  #36  
Old 2013-05-04, 4:20pm
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After reading this thread, I just ordered "Passing The Flame" by Corinna Tettinger.
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  #37  
Old 2013-05-08, 10:22pm
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I have $0.02 on this and I think your prob could be heat control. But I am very new to lampworking so I could be completely wrong!

I got a great deal on a GTT Lynx as my first torch which while great in some ways I think was bad in others. I was working with 104 COE and found that I just couldn't make anything consistent: size, shape, pucker, everything was unpredictable. Then on a whim I saw an ad in the GS for boro shorts for sale. I recalled that my Lynx should be able to handle boro so I bought them. When I started working with my new found boro it was very stiff, which I expected. But then the first boro bead evolved into exactly what I wanted down to the pucker! Then it hit me that if the 104 could be stiffer it would behave better for me. With that experience I changed how I setup my flame with 104, I ran it with very low candles, hardly any flame at all compared to how I was originally running it. The next beads in 104 were exactly what I wanted.

I know I have A LOT to learn about lampworking and have little to share for advice but again this is just my $0.02 and I hope it helps you or someone else.

Also I agree that buying Corina's Passing the Flame book is a great step. I will be working through the pages of my copy now that I have overcome this heat issue.
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  #38  
Old 2013-05-09, 7:22am
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Patti, you've gotten some good advice. Definitely check out the vision situation. Detail work requires good eyesight!

Try something to support your arm/hand/wrist when you're trying to apply details. There are a lot of options (some as simple as rolls of toilet paper covered in aluminum foil). If you browse the forum or ask for suggestions, you'll get a variety of things to try. Also, think about your caffeine consumption. Caffeine affects the steadiness of my hands, and I've gotten more sensitive to it over the years.

Encasing is tricky, and it is all (or nearly all) about heat control. You do need to have your base bead firm enough that it doesn't distort when you apply your encasing glass. Your encasing glass should be very hot, so that it goes on more smoothly. Try some different methods of encasing. I first started getting decent results with encasing when I started using the side to side "swipe" method -- heat a glob on the end of a rod, apply right to left across bead, heat another glob, swipe next to the first one but going the other direction, repeat around the bead. Then, to melt the encasing flat, start by heating the middle of the bead. When the encasing glass melts, it will drive any air bubbles toward the ends of your "swipes" and out from underneath the glass.

When you're melting encasing, you want to heat the surface of the bead, not the whole bead. Hold the bead so that the surface of the glass is in the flame, but most of the bead is below the flame. If you put the whole bead into the flame and keep it there, you'll melt the whole thing out of shape and distort the pattern under the encasing. Once in a while, while you're using surface heat to shape the encasing, you may want to give the whole bead a quick spin in the flame to keep up your base heat in the center of the bead.

For soft glass (boro is a whole different story), you want your bead to be warm enough that when you hold it in a dark place (like under your table) there's a glow from the center of the bead. You don't need or want it to be glowing orange in the flame the whole time, unless you're trying to reshape the whole glob of glass.

Corina's book is excellent for teaching decorative techniques. For understanding heat and bead shaping, however, I don't know of anyone better than Jim Smircich. I don't know if he's teaching any more, but he has a few videos (DVDs) out. You might want to see if you can lay your hands on those (probably starting with the first one, to get the very basics.) Jim Kervin also wrote one of his books about Jim Smircich -- probably not as valuable as a class or a video, but still useful.

(Patti, I know some of this advice is pretty basic and may be stuff that's second nature to you already -- I'm really writing for anybody who might be reading this and might find it useful.)

Finally, remember that everybody has some days that just suck. Some days nothing's going to work and you should just make spacers or pull stringer or hang it up and go do laundry or something, and try again another day.
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  #39  
Old 2013-05-10, 9:26am
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Patty, I know that this is going to sound weird, and I'm not a ophthalmologist, but I agree that you should start with your eyes. Having a thorough exam will tell a lot. They can tell if you've had a stroke by looking at your eyes. Even a mini stroke that you didn't know you had. A mini stroke can play havoc with your hand eye coordination. Not trying to scare you. Just MHO.

J.
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