The bummer with larger blown glass is that in order to get the glass hot enough to rake, you have to get the whole bubble really frikkin' hot. There is no just getting the outer surface hot, because it is hollow, so it is *all* outer surface. And you also have to worry about how the design will blow out. It is a lot easier to do raking on smaller, thicker bubbles. The problems is that the design will grow a lot when the bubble is blown out. Which works fine for the more wave-like patterns like that on the syrian/egyptian cup. Where you can see that they did actually get a glass "dam" behind the raking tool causing a more rounded top rather than a smooth line through the top of the deign. However, for the finer pattern, the bubble has to be more blown out and closer to the final shape in order to not loose detail, making it hard to drag even a small amount of glass without seriously compromising the uniformity of thickness of the wall or really mis-shaping the bubble. Wow... am getting pretty in depth here, but it is also helping me clarify my thoughts. :-)
I think the idea of sort of slicing with a bladed object to gently move the glass (sort of like doing the decorating on a cake) is the right way to go with this because the glass is tough enough that t doesn't actually cut, it just sort of dents the surface and pushes the glass up or down in the correct direction. using a pointed object is too likely to poke a hole into the bubble (not all the way through, that is harder than it seems, just make a dent into the bubble and fold it over or drag it into a weird shape). Ah well, with more practice will come a better understanding of what works best. I want to try some core vessels - I am sure what you are describing would work well on them, and they would be a lot of fun. I'll add that to the list of projects! :-)
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Date: 2009-01-23 08:36 pm (UTC)I think the idea of sort of slicing with a bladed object to gently move the glass (sort of like doing the decorating on a cake) is the right way to go with this because the glass is tough enough that t doesn't actually cut, it just sort of dents the surface and pushes the glass up or down in the correct direction. using a pointed object is too likely to poke a hole into the bubble (not all the way through, that is harder than it seems, just make a dent into the bubble and fold it over or drag it into a weird shape). Ah well, with more practice will come a better understanding of what works best. I want to try some core vessels - I am sure what you are describing would work well on them, and they would be a lot of fun. I'll add that to the list of projects! :-)