I was blowing a simple vase for months before a workshop in Tacoma showed me my heat base was off

I kept getting cracks at the bottom of my pieces and couldn't figure out why. At a workshop in Tacoma, the instructor, Mark, watched me for five minutes and pointed out I was only heating the very bottom of my punty, not the whole seal area. I'd been doing it wrong for almost a year. Has anyone else had a basic heat control habit they had to unlearn?

3 comments

3 Comments

brown.reese2mo ago

Actually, that workshop advice sounds overly simplistic. I've been blowing glass in Seattle for fifteen years and focusing heat right at the punty connection is a valid technique for certain forms. Sometimes those bottom cracks come from annealing issues or the type of glass you're using, not your heat base. Mark's one-size-fits-all fix might work for beginners but it can mess up more advanced control.

jamieperez2mo ago

Okay but how do you KNOW when to focus the heat versus spread it out? Is it about the thickness of the piece, or the shape you're going for? Because I've seen both ways work and now I'm second-guessing my whole process.

john43012d ago

That whole debate reminds me of this time I was watching a guy torch a spoon pipe and he kept moving the flame all over, and then another dude just held it steady and it came out fine. I dunno man, sometimes I think it's more about what feels right for the piece you're holding, like if it's thick you gotta keep it moving but if it's thin you can just leave it. Have you tried messing with the flame size itself to see if that changes things?