I have no idea what the ad campaign was all about. All I remember that at some point in the middle 1970's, in January, 'Smile, it's Juneuary' was placarded over what seemed to be all the New York City Transit Authority buses. It seemed appropriate slogan for this year given our record warmth this January. The weather was more spring-like than summer-like but 'Smile, Its Marchuary' just doesn't have the same ring to it. In fact, it sounds downright morbid.
Holy smokes.... I've been published...
Two trips to the hot shop this week- Wednesday and Sunday. Lots of floor models. I had a giant candy dish crack in two on Wed. when we went to break it off the punty. I think the cold air pouring in from an open window didn't help. The second piece came out great although we almost lost this on the punty as well. It was a large piece made with Uroboros dark green frit picked up after the second gather. Hard to believe I made this one in the little glory hole.
Sunday was the same-- one floor model, one giant piece. I think the giant piece came out cool. I think I managed to get it to blow much thinner. Carlo pointed out my second gather bubbles may have been too large too close to the moile. I slumped the bubble down a bit before gather 3 and it appeared to work. A much thinner lip although I'm still not too pleased with how large my moiles are. On my first piece I jacked too far down the bubble from the moile. During the transfer it got too cold and cracked from the moile to the jack line. Then the lip started coming apart and from that point we knew we had a floor model. At least this one didn't wait to jump off the punty at the end.
My large spun-out got interesting. It was so long that I couldn't see over the edge to properly place the punty. I actually had to look through the piece for proper placement. When I went to puffer it I almost didn't reach. Things got so hot that poor Jim, who was providing protection, ended up donning the kevlar gloves. There I sat in short sleeves and black pants taking the heat and my protector was all dolled up in Kevlar keeping my unprotected arms from bursting into flame!
Rant and rave time....
We *finally* took down the Christmas tree this weekend. When I took off the lights I went to check each string for burned out bulbs. Imagine my shock when I discovered all of our light sets had failed. I ended up getting my voltmeter out and painstakingly tested each buld and each socket. Out of 100 lamps (4 sets of 25) I had 30 burned out bulbs, several of which whose shunt devices failed and caused the sets not to light. I didn't have that many replacement bulbs so I ended up gutting one of the sets for its bulbs. These are specialty sets (G40 ice) otherwise I'd toss them and get new sets. Two sets of 100 mini lights will be 'tossed' -- I'll actually keep them so I cannibalize them for the bulbs. I think these two 100 sets will be replaced with LED lights next year. Hard to believe that so many bulbs were burned out. The rate of simultaneous failure jsut does not seem statistically valid.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Fun with punties
It has been another busy week with little time to blog or do just about anything else. With the spring semester back in full force we're back to the usual blow schedule, Wednesday nights from 9 PM to midnight. At least this semester I don't have a class at 8 AM Thursday to make life interesting!
I've had reasonable luck working large the past few sessions. I'm still not getting my lips thin enough although on Sunday I think I managed a reasonable size. I'm still not gettign the flare that I want on the spins but I think it has more to do with heat control, or my lack thereof, on the top of the piece. They are getting large. And heavy. I was sure my wrists were going to lock up on the one piece I made Sunday. I couldn't believe how much weight I was balancing on the end of the pipe. As I came out of the melter I went straight for the marver to control the giant molten glob I seemed barely in control of. Let's see-- a giant blob, probably 8 - 10 pound worth, of moltem glass at 2050 degrees F, precariously waving at the end of a 5 foot stick. Just how much damage can I do?
At least I stayed away from the white glass.
Necking this piece was interesting. Jim B. showed up, making for a welcome second partner. I had Carlo turn pole while Jim handled protection. The intense heat coming off the glass was incredible. There's no way I can work them this large without a second partner.
This one made it to the box. The rest of the morning didn't go so well. I sent one to the cullet pile when experimenting with the optic mold. I was doing a solo blow on the second bench while Jim and Carlo were working on another piece. It was a good day to have both glory holes burning. Too bad I forgot to tool up the second bench. I blew the bottom to thin and my attempt at a pumpkin died on the pipe when it collapsed on a reheat.
Carlo and Jim weren't as lucky. Their pieces kept popping off the punties all morning. Carlo got too agressive when tweezing the top of one of his and they were unlucky with the rest. Even my little flower vase commited punty-cide right near the end.
On Wednesday's session I experimented with a different white powder, an opal white from Uraboros. I thought I laid it on the first gather rather thick but in the end it really wasn't that strong a white. It looked OK but I was hoping for something a little bit deeper. My secondary colors were some Uraboros cherry red and marigold yellow. The effect came out really well and I imagine would have been even more dramatic had the white been stronger. I'll have to remember this color combination. I gave this one to my daughter who refuses to give it back just long enough so that I can photograph it for the portfolio.
The Patton Township ABC dinner was Friday evening. The dinner is held to honor the township residents such as myself who volunteer counteless hours to making local government work. I can't imagine what our taxes would be if paid staff had to do all that work. It was nice to see so many other civic minded folks present. Tom Kurtz, our township manager, is stepping down afer 22 years to take another position in the area. He got a well deserved a standing ovation.
It is hard to believe how warm this past January has been. Last Friday I was again driving with the sunroof open. I jsut hope we don't end up paying for it in March. I even let the fire go out for a few days. It was nice not having to fetch logs on a regular basis for a little while. Now mind you we have central heat. Its just that it is natural gas and this year the cost of gas is just nuts. We went to firewood as an alternative heat source and found the wood stove does a better job of heating the house.
The weather started to turnback to winter on Saturday, just in time for me to be doing outdoor work. Once again I got the outdoor Christmas lights down before Groundhog Day. Not bad-- only one expensive net light set had problems. Unfortunately it is the wrong set to be bad. Several years ago I bought some 'heavy duty' sets at an after Christmas closeout at Target. The wires were heavier and the sets looked well constructed. I figured with their reliability they would pay for themselves over the cheaper made equivalent sets sold across the way at WalMart. Was I ever wrong. One set got eaten by the snow blower. The other set is the one that is now half-dead. Those chaeper WalMart lights? They're still burning....
I've had reasonable luck working large the past few sessions. I'm still not getting my lips thin enough although on Sunday I think I managed a reasonable size. I'm still not gettign the flare that I want on the spins but I think it has more to do with heat control, or my lack thereof, on the top of the piece. They are getting large. And heavy. I was sure my wrists were going to lock up on the one piece I made Sunday. I couldn't believe how much weight I was balancing on the end of the pipe. As I came out of the melter I went straight for the marver to control the giant molten glob I seemed barely in control of. Let's see-- a giant blob, probably 8 - 10 pound worth, of moltem glass at 2050 degrees F, precariously waving at the end of a 5 foot stick. Just how much damage can I do?
At least I stayed away from the white glass.
Necking this piece was interesting. Jim B. showed up, making for a welcome second partner. I had Carlo turn pole while Jim handled protection. The intense heat coming off the glass was incredible. There's no way I can work them this large without a second partner.
This one made it to the box. The rest of the morning didn't go so well. I sent one to the cullet pile when experimenting with the optic mold. I was doing a solo blow on the second bench while Jim and Carlo were working on another piece. It was a good day to have both glory holes burning. Too bad I forgot to tool up the second bench. I blew the bottom to thin and my attempt at a pumpkin died on the pipe when it collapsed on a reheat.
Carlo and Jim weren't as lucky. Their pieces kept popping off the punties all morning. Carlo got too agressive when tweezing the top of one of his and they were unlucky with the rest. Even my little flower vase commited punty-cide right near the end.
On Wednesday's session I experimented with a different white powder, an opal white from Uraboros. I thought I laid it on the first gather rather thick but in the end it really wasn't that strong a white. It looked OK but I was hoping for something a little bit deeper. My secondary colors were some Uraboros cherry red and marigold yellow. The effect came out really well and I imagine would have been even more dramatic had the white been stronger. I'll have to remember this color combination. I gave this one to my daughter who refuses to give it back just long enough so that I can photograph it for the portfolio.
The Patton Township ABC dinner was Friday evening. The dinner is held to honor the township residents such as myself who volunteer counteless hours to making local government work. I can't imagine what our taxes would be if paid staff had to do all that work. It was nice to see so many other civic minded folks present. Tom Kurtz, our township manager, is stepping down afer 22 years to take another position in the area. He got a well deserved a standing ovation.
It is hard to believe how warm this past January has been. Last Friday I was again driving with the sunroof open. I jsut hope we don't end up paying for it in March. I even let the fire go out for a few days. It was nice not having to fetch logs on a regular basis for a little while. Now mind you we have central heat. Its just that it is natural gas and this year the cost of gas is just nuts. We went to firewood as an alternative heat source and found the wood stove does a better job of heating the house.
The weather started to turnback to winter on Saturday, just in time for me to be doing outdoor work. Once again I got the outdoor Christmas lights down before Groundhog Day. Not bad-- only one expensive net light set had problems. Unfortunately it is the wrong set to be bad. Several years ago I bought some 'heavy duty' sets at an after Christmas closeout at Target. The wires were heavier and the sets looked well constructed. I figured with their reliability they would pay for themselves over the cheaper made equivalent sets sold across the way at WalMart. Was I ever wrong. One set got eaten by the snow blower. The other set is the one that is now half-dead. Those chaeper WalMart lights? They're still burning....
Monday, January 16, 2006
I hate white....
I just started working with white. White is an annoying color to work with. It doesn't want to hold its heat. When I made this dish the other night I was amazed just how fast it would lose heat. When on the punty when I was straightening the side walls and getting ready for the spin I was barely thru one revolution when the sidewalls started stiffening up. The jacks started skidding as the walls got stiff. I almost overcooked the glass just trying to keep it hot enough to work with. Even getting in the neck line took more steps than usual.This was my first successful piece using a white rod. I didn't put any overlay color on it since I didn't think it was going to survive. This one fought me all the way from the starter bubble. My last attempt when using white bar ended in the cullet pile. It would have been a nice piece with blue and green frit mixed in it. That one fought me all the way as well. I was just a little luckier with this one.
I had a little more luck with this one. I used white 00 frit. I did a lot of frit pickups to get enough of a white underlayer. I did a quick gather to get a thin clear layer over the white and then a few rolls in some size 2 blue frit. A gather and trail off over the top and then the usual to make the rest of this dish. There was enough white at the top to keep me from working the lip thin and thus another fight ensued to get the top to fold the way I like it.I managed one in the box in this morning's (actually yesterday ath the time of this writing) using white. I like the effect of white underneat with color on top. I've now made quite a few contributions to the cullet pile trying to use white in poweder, frit, or bar form. Curses to the new obsession. I'll master this color yet and get back to my usual form!
Spring teased us last week, We had a few warm days and the sun even made an appearance. On Friday afternoon I was even able to shed the light winter coat in favor of shirt sleeves. Winter roared back in with snow showers and ice on Saturday and today despite bright sun shine it was cold. I was getting used to not having to tend to the fire. I had to go to Sears over the weekend and it was amusing to see some of the spring merchandise being put up. I guess the stores are starting to tease us as well. I wonder what the damed groundhog will have to say.
I finally found time to document my 2003 visit to the Henryville ghost station on teh DL&W mainline. Check it out at http://mysite.verizon.net/nucci6/henryville/HenryvilleStation.html.
I also like to collect glass insulators. Insulators are sort of the bridge between my hobbies of workign hot glass and exploring parts of the DL&W main line. I haven't actively collected in the wild in a while. Imagine my surprise on Saturday evening when I came home from a dinner party. Just prior to leaving I had thrown some large logs on the fire. When we got home the fire had died down and pretty much all that was left were the hot ashes. As I was poking thru them to stire up the hot coals to put on a fresh load of wood I noticed something unusual in the ashes. It was two tiny procelan insulators, eithe rfrom an old rural phone drop or an electric fence. They were buried in one of the large logs, covered with years of growth. Amazing.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Picture Perfect
Here's the result of my New Year's eve session in the hot shop. This is the candy dish that survived. Looks good? Go back and read my Happy New Year blog and you'll see this is the one I initially didn't like! It came out of the annealer a lot better than I remember it going in.I wish I could do a better job photographing my glass. I have to admit that even with not so good photography this dish looks really good. Sometimes I even impress myself.
On Thursday evening I made another candy dish that looked like this one but experimented with putting on a cookie foot. I never did one of those before. For a first attempt it didn't come out too bad but I'm never going to publically release a photo of it. Let's just say it looks like a first time piece. A few more experiments with cookie feet and I just might have it. I think the larger dishes look good with feet. And some cane. I also managed a perfectly round and perfectly flat plate. We'll use it as a cake plate. I just started doing plates and some days I get great plates. Some days I just add to the cullet pile.
Today was a cullet pile day. I tried working too large for our glory hole and stuff just barely fit. It is hard to do a proper spinout when there's about a quarter inch clearance thru the doors. One dish survived and I think it came out quite well despite an overly thick lip. The other crashed and burned during breakoff. The spin stank and the entire pieces wobbled off center. Ug-lee. I'm kind of glad it self destructed at the end.
As I work larger and larger pieces I'm amazed at how much heavier and hotter the glass is. Jacking is a whole new experience. I have to have someone turn pole and then take the heat on my hand as I cut in the jack line. Just a few more, may be a lot more, and I'll have this worked out to semi-perfection. Watch this space...
I just finished A Fist Full of Fig Newtons by Jean Shepherd. For those not in the know Jean is the creative source for the movie
A Christmas Story which is typical of his story-telling style. Fig Newtons made for some great fireside reading when not tending to life's needs or thinking of something else to create in the hot shop.
Excelsior! You Fathead!
Attention all creative writers and bloggers. I just got this e-mail from my cousin and thought that you'd be interested:
"The Pow Wow Paper will no longer publish a monthly e-zine. The website will now be the exclusive home for all content that the PW publishes. Content will be updated weekly. So visit www.powwowpaper.com often for the best entertainment our writers have to offer."
So go ahead and check it out. Tell them I sent ya!
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Double Whammy
Today (yesterday now) dawned as yet another dull and grey central Pennsylvania winter day. I've lost track of when we last saw the sun. More rain is on the way (it is supposed to *snow* this time of year) and it is a chilly damp. I hate days like this. It felt about 5x worse since I hardly got any sleep staying up half the night to watch the Orange Bowl.
The one bright spot of the day was supposed to be tonight's (ok, technically last night's) session in the hot shop. I had arranged with my Wednesday glass partner Jim (who is an excellent flame work artist by the way) to meet at 7 PM. I was running late and Jim buzzed me on the cell that the shop was locked up and dark. Someone must have noticed the door propped open for us from the session that ended at 6 PM. No smell of burning paper and bees wax tonight.
I then come home to find an e-mail from my other friend that a piece we worked on New Years Eve, a nice candy dish in dark and moss green frit from Uroboros had split in two in the annealer. Damn. I was so happy about how well the bottom came out on that piece, at least until we took a chunk out of it during breakoff. I guess we got it too cool after the last spinout . Either that or someone left the annealer open too long.
Having been burned out from lack of sleep the night before I guess it was good to skip a session. Maybe we can steal a slot Thursday evening.
The one bright spot of the day was supposed to be tonight's (ok, technically last night's) session in the hot shop. I had arranged with my Wednesday glass partner Jim (who is an excellent flame work artist by the way) to meet at 7 PM. I was running late and Jim buzzed me on the cell that the shop was locked up and dark. Someone must have noticed the door propped open for us from the session that ended at 6 PM. No smell of burning paper and bees wax tonight.
I then come home to find an e-mail from my other friend that a piece we worked on New Years Eve, a nice candy dish in dark and moss green frit from Uroboros had split in two in the annealer. Damn. I was so happy about how well the bottom came out on that piece, at least until we took a chunk out of it during breakoff. I guess we got it too cool after the last spinout . Either that or someone left the annealer open too long.
Having been burned out from lack of sleep the night before I guess it was good to skip a session. Maybe we can steal a slot Thursday evening.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Happy New Year
And good riddance to 2005. In retrospect it wasn't an entirely bad year but there are parts of it we'd all like to forget.
We rang out 2005 in style. I spent the better part of the marning and early afternoon in the hot shop. The last candy dish, my first attempt at using cane, came out rather well. A few more of those and I just might be ready to start blending techniques in producing some really neat pieces. I managed a large candy dish in green for this session along with a slightly smaller one. A hot punty and a too-hot bottom conspired to remove a chunk during the final break-off but I think this piece will come out OK. Although the larger dish looks good overall I wasn't impressed with how thick I let the lip become. Better luck next time. With the holiday break over everyone is back in town so we have to fight for studio time again. I guess it is back to once a week blowing again. Ask nice some day and I might post some pictrues of my pieces.Thanks Carlo for all the glass this past week.
After studio time I went home and picked up the family where we headed downtown for First Night. As usual I forgot my camera so I have no neat photos of any the ice sculptures. I forgot the camera last year as well and took some lousy shots with my camera phone. The kids enjoyed the ice slide and I think this is the first year I didn't go for a ride with the kids down the slide. I think 'the hand' needs another year of healing before I try again. We rang all the bells, threw some resolution sticks into the fire, saw the reindeer and munched away on some of Hanson's Orginal Kettle Korn. After dinner at Grandma's we headed back downtown to check out the rest of the scene and catch the fireworks show at midnight.
Needless to say we all woke up late Sunday morning. New Year's Day is little celebrated in our household- no special dinner or anything. I don't think we ever did anything special on this day, even as a kid. New Years Day was The End of Christmas Vacation meaning Tomorrow we all went Back to School. As such it was a bummer of a holiday.
Pity poor New Year. It really is a bummer of a holiday. New Year's Eve gets all the glory while the day itself gets the hang-over and post-holiday letdown. Nobody sends New Year's cards and as far as music goes my limited research shows that Auld Lang Syne is about it. I'm still waiting for the Charlie Brown New Year special. Or perhaps Garfield's. Even the pinnacle of New Years Day, All Day College Football, is spread over several days, each bowl trying to trump the others in their importance because they commandeered another day of the week. XM will never dedicate a channel to New Year. All New Years gets for its holiday music is some leftover Christmas songs. Heck, even the First Night ice slide, cared for and alive and full of screaming kids on New Years Eve, lies forlorn and tattered the next day, The Day, the holiday itself.
Little loved and often misunderstodd New Years Day plays back fiddle to New Years Eve and Christmas, the back door to the holiday season, when we see the first of the Christmas tress, once lovingly picked out in an ornate family gathering, now unmercifully tossed to the curb awaiting pickup. New Years Day needs a better PR campaign. To heck with the so called war on Christmas- there's been a wa on New Years Day and it lost to the Eve. I say we march on city hall and make something of this holiday. New Year Ham, anyone?
We rang out 2005 in style. I spent the better part of the marning and early afternoon in the hot shop. The last candy dish, my first attempt at using cane, came out rather well. A few more of those and I just might be ready to start blending techniques in producing some really neat pieces. I managed a large candy dish in green for this session along with a slightly smaller one. A hot punty and a too-hot bottom conspired to remove a chunk during the final break-off but I think this piece will come out OK. Although the larger dish looks good overall I wasn't impressed with how thick I let the lip become. Better luck next time. With the holiday break over everyone is back in town so we have to fight for studio time again. I guess it is back to once a week blowing again. Ask nice some day and I might post some pictrues of my pieces.Thanks Carlo for all the glass this past week.
After studio time I went home and picked up the family where we headed downtown for First Night. As usual I forgot my camera so I have no neat photos of any the ice sculptures. I forgot the camera last year as well and took some lousy shots with my camera phone. The kids enjoyed the ice slide and I think this is the first year I didn't go for a ride with the kids down the slide. I think 'the hand' needs another year of healing before I try again. We rang all the bells, threw some resolution sticks into the fire, saw the reindeer and munched away on some of Hanson's Orginal Kettle Korn. After dinner at Grandma's we headed back downtown to check out the rest of the scene and catch the fireworks show at midnight.
Needless to say we all woke up late Sunday morning. New Year's Day is little celebrated in our household- no special dinner or anything. I don't think we ever did anything special on this day, even as a kid. New Years Day was The End of Christmas Vacation meaning Tomorrow we all went Back to School. As such it was a bummer of a holiday.
Pity poor New Year. It really is a bummer of a holiday. New Year's Eve gets all the glory while the day itself gets the hang-over and post-holiday letdown. Nobody sends New Year's cards and as far as music goes my limited research shows that Auld Lang Syne is about it. I'm still waiting for the Charlie Brown New Year special. Or perhaps Garfield's. Even the pinnacle of New Years Day, All Day College Football, is spread over several days, each bowl trying to trump the others in their importance because they commandeered another day of the week. XM will never dedicate a channel to New Year. All New Years gets for its holiday music is some leftover Christmas songs. Heck, even the First Night ice slide, cared for and alive and full of screaming kids on New Years Eve, lies forlorn and tattered the next day, The Day, the holiday itself.
Little loved and often misunderstodd New Years Day plays back fiddle to New Years Eve and Christmas, the back door to the holiday season, when we see the first of the Christmas tress, once lovingly picked out in an ornate family gathering, now unmercifully tossed to the curb awaiting pickup. New Years Day needs a better PR campaign. To heck with the so called war on Christmas- there's been a wa on New Years Day and it lost to the Eve. I say we march on city hall and make something of this holiday. New Year Ham, anyone?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
