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Tutorial

Lampwork is such a obsession for me.  I am at my torch almost everyday.  So over the years, I have learned a few tricks and techniques.  This section is to share some of them with you.  Please excuse the blurry pictures.  It is hard to hold and shoot the camera while trying to keep the glass warm.  I hope to add more tutorials in the future.

Tutorial 1

Making Colorful Murrini

Tools various optic mold made of aluminum or graphite and a pair of stainless chopsticks. I used the 12 point optic mold.  Instead of chopsticks you can also use a 1/8" mandrel.  I like to use chopsticks because fatter ends are great for pulling murrini and thinner ends are useful for pulling stringers.

Glass white opaque, clear, yellow transparent, red opaque, yellow opaque, and purple opaque.  Pull at least 36" of 1mm stringer using purple.  I usually make at least 2 very long stringers before I start.
  Build about 1 inch of yellow opaque on the edge of the fat end of a chopstick.  start encasing the yellow.  For this murrini, I encased it with 1 layer of white, 1 layer of purple, 1 layer of red, 1 layer of yellow opaque, and 1 layer of transparent yellow.  For practice you can eliminate any or all the encasing layers.  Be sure to melt in the glass until smooth after each layer.
After the final layer of encasement is melted in smoothly, use your graphite marver and shape the glass into cone shape
Get the glass molten hot and plunge it into the mold.  Repeat until you can see the ridges clearly.
Stripe the glass with your 1mm purple stringer using the ridges as a guide.  Keep your stringer close to the flame but not in the flame and make sure the glass is hot to accept the stringer.
Cap both end of the glass with clear.  You want to make sure the clear on the fat end touches the chopstick and some of the clear cover all the stripes.  Get the end (fat side) of the second chopstick  glowing hot and .  plunge it into the clear glass.  When the chopstick is firmly attached, heat the glass thoroughly  Then round it up and stretch it out.  Pull when the glass is not droopy.

 
Now snip the cane into usable chips and they are ready to use.

 

This Page Last Update: May 18, 2010