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| It was a lovely summer afternoon with lots of good food and good company. A few of us played around on Rafael's torch. It's a mid-range with a boro torch on top. We also admired Sonja & Rafael's collection of art displayed in their garden, which of course they have made. |
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| I asked Ania Kyte to demo a heart bead for us, as we don't seem to have one in the bead report yet. |
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She keeps adding glass to one side then the middle and marvering slightly until it's a chunky cone shape. |
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| She flattens the bead between the torch marver and graphite paddle | Then the heart shaping begins. Using the paddle she creates a more pointed shape on the narrow end of the cone. | She spot heats the wider end and uses gravity to pull out and round the edges and top of the heart on each side. |
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| Ania then reheats one side of the bead and using a razor tool makes a crease at the top (near the mandrel) to separate and shape the two sides of the heart. Then the same on the other side. |
Now for a little scrolling decoration on both sides with red stringer. Then a slight re-heat to make sure the raised stringer is attached. |
Ta Da… finished bead. Great job Ania! She always makes that scrolling stringer thing looks so easy! She advises to practise, practise, practise. |
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| Here's some of the party goers checking out Raf's glass blowing set-up. |
The lampworking and pottery studio |
The ever popular and very cool Bead-X-Change. |
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| So after lots of food and libations… the hot shop got all fired up! Here's Raf and Mitch getting a pre-heated Corona bottle from the kiln. |
Mitch is heating the bottle up in the glory hole. |
Mitch is now working the neck of the bottle,
flaring it out. |
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With a little more heating and flaring… voila a Corona drinking glass - well I guess a beer glass. Then back into the kiln for annealing. The Corona label is enamel so it can survive the heating. Pretty cool eh! |
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| Next up Joanne Andrighetti who is making a small pitcher. A little prep work first… Joanne pulled a cane that she will use later. |
Now she's getting a gather on the end of the blowpipe from the melting pot. |
Some shaping on the marver. Joanne was moving so fast I was having a bit of trouble keeping things in focus… oh well you get the idea. |
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Bubble blown, some shaping then with Raf's help they attached a punty to the end and removed the blow pipe, then Joanne opened up the end and shaped a spout on one side. |
Here's the shape now going back into the glory hole for more heat. |
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| Remember the cane she pulled earlier? While Raf was keeping the pitcher warm Joanne ran to the torch to make the handle. She is making a hand on the end of the cane. |
Now with Raf's help she is heating the pitcher and attaching the handle. |
A little shaping of the handle, then back into the glory hole for a quick re-heat and its done. Picture doesn't really do it justice... nice job Joanne! |
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| Now its Raf's turn and he's making a chilli pepper. He got a gather on the end of pipe and is rolling it in some frit. |
Into the glory hole for some heat. |
Some shaping with the cherry wood block then back into the heat. |
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| Blowing the bubble then back in to heat. |
Raf grabs the end with tweezers and starts to pull and twist the pepper into shape. |
Now Raf's clipping off the excess and finishing the end of the pepper. Now after this things went a bit awry (got too cold) so we didn't get to see the finished pepper but we definitely got the idea… thanks Raf! |
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| Holly Cruise also showed us a lotus flower with help from Liz Curry and Mitch. I got one pic then ran out of memory on the card - darn! But it was very cool and really showed the teamwork required in glass blowing. Thanks guys |
A couple of pics courtesy of Joanne. From left to right: Me, Shelly Poole, Cathy and Don Camley and of course Mitch at the bench. |
And a little later Ian Lang did some Boro sculptural torch work for us. |
Thanks so much to all our demonstrators and party goers for making this a really special and educational Beer & Beadz!
