Last Sunday I went to the flat of a friend who is very into making things with glass - you know it's serious when someone has their own portable hospital oxygen generator to super-heat propane.
We donned safety glasses and got started melting glass rods and winding them around mandrels, which was actually much easier than I had thought although there were so many factors to keep in mind that it was mentally exhausting after a while - keeping the mandrel parallel to the floor and rotating it constantly to keep the bead even, keeping only the edge of the bead in the flame to avoid it melting and running (I did that a lot, as you cans see from the turnip-shaped ones), and just telling where the flame was through the safety glasses! The easiest thing to do was was to watch the glass bead like a hawk and guess from the incandescence of the glass.
Some colours of glass were easier to work with others, and once I had an idea of the basics we went on to dots and stripes, twisting and poking the hot glass, making thin "stringers" from the large canes and coating in clear glass.
The glass loses all colour when it's heated, so it involves a certain amount of guesswork. As soon as the bead starts to cool and the colours starts to return, it's time to bury it in a pan of hot vermiculite so it can cool down slowly and not crack.
It was a huge amount of fun, and much more manageable than I had thought. I might have to get rid of another hobby before taking this one on though...
I know this one is distinctly turnip-shaped, but I do like it.
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