Roll Up ????

[Magic Glass Lady]

Abeh has two Roll Ups in his album on the Community Gallery.  How are they made??

Magic Glass Lady

[abeh]

The short answer is that they start out as flat tiles of glass,  and then they are taken to a hotshop where they get blown into a vessel, or what ever shape you had in mind.

The longer answer is:   I first start out by full fusing a 3 layer ~9mm tile of glass.   The ones in the gallery started out as 8″ X 10″.  I then coldworked the edges to make it easier to hide the seam when the piece is blown.

After I am happy with the tiles,  I took them to a hot shop along with a drawing of what I wanted the final piece to resemble.   The tiles are then heated up in the kiln to ~1150.  So far it works well to deliver the tiles at night, so the next day they are at temp.

To start the process in the hot shop,  they build a collar on the blow pipe.  The diamater of the collar is determined by the length of the tile.  Doesnt need to be exact but closer is better.  When the collar is complete,  the tile and the kiln shelf are removed from the kiln and then placed in a glory hole to heat the tile to get it hot enough to be able to roll up around the collar.

Once the tile is rolled around the collar,  it is then marvered to remove the seam, and start shaping.   After this, then end is closed off, and then the piece is blown out to the predetermined shape.   Eventually the piece is attached to a punti and the blowpipe is removed, and the final shaping is done at this time.

Please note that the punti has to be compitable glass.  This is because once the piece is cracked off the punti, part of the punti may still be attached to the vessel, and incompatible glass may cause the vessel to crack or break.  Since my rollups have been bullseye,  I bring along some scrap BE glass for the punti.   It generally isnt necessary for the collar to be compatible since none of that glass stays on the vessel,  BUT it will vary depending on who is doing the blowing.

Once the shape is complete,  the vessel is removed from the punti and put in an annealing oven for the presicribed length of time.

The two vessels shown were blown by Jonathan Schmuck http://www.schmuckglass.com/  at a rollup class in San Antonio.  The class was done by Wired Designs http://www.wireddesignsstudio.com and Dragonfire Glass http://www.dragonfirehotglass.com    I have 2 more pieces that were done later by Larry West at Dragonfire.  Pictures will eventually be posted.

Abe

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