“Stonewashed was a bit shocky. It needs to be treated with care. The flame needs to be kept off the section being thinned, and the piece needs to be moved away from the torch while flame-cutting. If the thinned section is in the flame or too close to the torch, it will scum up almost 100% of the time. The nib remaining after flame-cutting needs to be lightly heated and pressed into the body of the piece. Scummy areas can be plucked out. It’s like Goldilocks- the flame can’t be too oxidized or the glass is likely to get scummy. But it can’t be too reduced or the glass carbonizes. You need to dial in the perfect flame. The cloudy transparents do have just the right amount of viscosity to be perfect for sculpting. With very little heating, the glass is ready to accept manipulation, yet stiff enough to hold the details as long as you don’t accidentally hit it with the flame too long. There is a short learning curve to get the timing down.”
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Laurie Nessel
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