Glass saga 2020, 2 new bricks February 26

After a vase or plate is blown there is color rich glass left on blow pole after vase is cut away and placed in an annealing furnace to stabilize glass.
The chunk left on the blow pole is often left to cool fast at room temp and has a lot of built up stress in it.
Just touching this chunk to a tile saw blade makes it sorta shatter into smaller chunks.
End result is a bunch of tumbler friendly ~3/4 inch chunks at a rate of about a pound per 2-3 minutes.
These chunks could be reheated and annealed but at this size most of the internal stresses have been relieved.
Should take about 3 days in SiC 60 to have them shaped to rounds and eggs.
Could be made smaller to be used as random shaped beads.

Chunks stolen from wife's stash and she does not know lol.

WOW ! Nice work.

The glass brick thing is not so popular with people that work with glass.
A million ways to go with the bricks.
It works great for me because I can saw the bricks and tumble polish.
Sawn surfaces can rarely be remelted to a fuse polish, the saw/grind marks leave a terrible bubble layer that totally clouds your glass work.
Again, the ability to tumble polish opens a whole new horizon in small glass pieces such as jewelry.
It is odd how the thin color layers act as umbrellas as the chunks melt downward into the mold.
Every time, just like a parachute opening. Look at it from the top and it is spread out like a puffed rooster, cut through it vertically and you only see the thin fabric edge.
My wife likes the bigger chunks, I use the nippers to make smaller chunks. However blue and red are dominate and have larger color bands in this glass.
Chunk size is a matter of controlling color feature size.

Last night we both did a blue/yellow brick. same game, hers w/bigger chunks and me with smaller except I added a bunch of sharply nipped small opaque yellow to the mix.
Another effect is to tumble the frit to a round shape to have a bunch of balls melted into the glass.
The tumbling really comes in handy for unique effects.

I got to build a glass nipper with more leverage than the hand nippers. Talk about blisters and sore hands from arthritis after nipping.
The more I learn about glass the more you need to break it into different sizes.
As you know making your own frit is a big player since frit is a painter's paint in the glass world.

Those old trays are very inexpensive around here.

Ah, you have discovered the silver-plate. Interesting adornment for fishing rods.
Rogers, Graham, many brands made by family operations since the late 1800's.
The ones with the maker's stamp and are older seem to have superior metals.

German made in early to mid 1900's is some of the most workable silver colored metal - german silver ? No idea what it is.
I found a half dozen German mades with a famous hotel name and swastika's on them in a scrap metal remelter's pile.
Some were a super soft stainless.

German silver is often the same as nickle silver.

Nickel may be a common component in those trays Beth.

Recent projects

blue/yellow melt bricks. Looks like the spearhead guys are going to want slabs from bricks.
Looks like the 18 inch Covington saw is going to be converted to water for glass cutting.
Fill with water, do your cutting, then drain and wash it out with garden hose. Keep grease gun close. Marine fogger.




random shaped bead glass being tumbled. This glass too fun.
Contacted some bead companies. Inquiring about scrap glass bead stock. Scrap is treasure.



earring/bead size glass. from melts and blown vases. being tumbled. Lots of sawing. Practicing on small stuff.
Sure would be nice to have an automated saw with computer control.
Hand made glass, automated and mass produced shaping and tumbling. Repurposed glass. Does hybrid handmade count ?

Thanks
They were the easiest possible cuts. Freehand without precision or repeatability.

When sawing rocks in a large rock saw for heat treating it is best to run water so the oil does not turn the rocks brown when heated.
But it wears the diamond blade much faster.
Glass is softer and water is totally adequate for cutting liquid, so I am going to start doing the time consuming bulk sawing on the 18 inch rock saw.
That will allow making larger bricks and the rock saw cuts by itself.