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

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  #1  
Old 2017-08-11, 3:52am
Steampunked Steampunked is offline
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Default Avoiding the starting glob of glass...

A very newbie question...

What is the main cause when winding glass onto a mandrel of a big glob to start with? Mandrel too cold, glass too hot?

At the moment, sometimes it happens, sometimes it does not, and I'm too new to have any experience to understand what causes it. However, it does stop me from making a nice even disc as the glob of a gather means the glass runs out too soon.
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  #2  
Old 2017-08-11, 5:42am
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A very light touch in joining glass and mandrel will give you a smaller footprint to start with. Also, have the mandrel turning before you even get the glass near the surface of the release. If you want a smaller footprint, don't melt a huge gob of glass to start. Melt a small blob the size of a pea, get it down for your footprint, then melt a bigger blob to increase size of bead. HTH
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  #3  
Old 2017-08-11, 8:30am
bluhealer bluhealer is offline
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Also, if you do wind up with too large a gather, simply swipe some off on the very end of the mandrel---much easier than picking up a tool to remove it. As you pull away, you'll thin the gather, making it easier to start with a small footprint.
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  #4  
Old 2017-08-11, 12:59pm
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I've also noticed if you start spinning the mandrel before the glass touches it you get less of a starting glob.
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  #5  
Old 2017-08-11, 4:48pm
Steampunked Steampunked is offline
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Thanks folks. I'm having to visit inlaws today but I'll try this all tomorrow!
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  #6  
Old 2017-08-11, 5:01pm
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Sometimes I use my marver to roll it into a pointed blob if I have not paid attention and have to much melted too.
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  #7  
Old 2017-08-11, 10:07pm
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I saw someone on YouTube rotating the mandrel towards them and they laid the starting blob of glass on the top of the mandrel. As it rotated, they pushed the rest of the melting rod through that first blob for the first full rotation and it made perfect donuts.

I just looked and can't find the video, unfortunately.

-BEP
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Old 2017-08-12, 6:03am
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If you are able to watch youtube videos on beginner bead making, it might give you a better idea on how to do it. There are lots of them and many are wonderfully informative.
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Old 2017-08-12, 10:54am
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When I started I made really skinny disk beads adding thin layer on top of thin layer and then slowly melted them out to the size of foot print I wanted.

It helped me get a handle on heat control with the different stiffness of various colors and transparent versus opaque glass.

It also helped me learn to only melt a little gather of glass instead of the huge globs from my first attempts.
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