How I Blow Out A Slugger Bar Glassblowing Colour Prep - Whats Melting?

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this upload I get into how I break down a slugger bar of Northstars colour Lucid into rod and tube. First I do a blow out which is the tubulation of a solid gather of colour. I do this by separating a section of colour from the slugger bar and pushing a hole into the centre of the gather. I push a blow tube onto the opening and pull a little before heating until I'm sure the inner wall is hot a ready to flow. Then I puff and repeat until I can blow it out evenly to form a bubble I can stretch into a tube.

Second I show how I pull rod from a slugger bar. I handle up to each end with handles I prep beforehand with gathers the size of the end of the slugger. Then I proceed to heat the bar until a large amount of glass becomes molten and ready to flow. Once I can feel the bar soften I come out of the heat and hang the glass vertical and slowly control the stretch until part of the pull cools before pulling with force to pull as much rod out as possible. The more heat you set into the bar the rod you can pull.

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Find Northstar Glass Colours and info here https://northstarglass.com/

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00:35 Skimming the end
00:55 Handling up
03:20 The blow out
13:08 Pulling rod