Tungsten Pick Troubles

[Plays With Fire]

I have been using a tungsten to make holes in the top of my boro lampwork pendants and I am noticing a yellow smoke like burning that goes across my pendant and into the center of the hole I am making.
I am making a lump of clear glass on the top of the pendant and then squeezing the center with my peters tweezers. I then heat my tungsten pick to red hot and twisting it through the cooling glass to make the hole as I watched in a video. It was working great but all of sudden it has a greenish yellow film on the pick and is now smoking. Can anyone tell me what happened and what I can do to clean the pick off? I tried sandpaper but it doesn't help at all.
Thank you in advance.

[Dasi]

You are actually heating your pick too hot.
I Get my pick hot by laying it on the top of my flame, not actually in the flame and then it goes right through the glass.

[glowinglass]

Try NOT heating the pick at all - it's too small a mass of metal to shock the glass so it's not necessary. I think you're getting it so hot the metal is reacting with the glass - overkill in my opinion. I actually prefer a graphite reamer though.

[debkauz]

You're getting it too hot and fuming the bead with it. Breathing tungsten fumes is a bad idea so try to keep it a little cooler. The yellow is the fumed part.

[Cosmo]

Try NOT heating the pick at all - it's too small a mass of metal to shock the glass so it's not necessary. I think you're getting it so hot the metal is reacting with the glass - overkill in my opinion. I actually prefer a graphite reamer though.

You have to get it hot to pierce with it.

But, like others have said, the tungsten is getting too hot. You just barely need the flame to hit it. If you do get tungsten fume on the glass, you can burn it off easily in the flame.

[Bunyip]

yeah, I think of it as surfing the top of the flame - it takes a little practice but once you find the sweet spot you'll understand.

[wickedglass]

I usually just pull loops, but if I want to keep a pattern in the bail, I use home made bail nips made from long nose pliers. The bail nips will crush out the center of a bail leaving a larger hole. As a reamer, I have a gently tapering long shashlik skewer from the op shop.
Heat the long nose pliers with your torch at the point where you want to bend, and use another set of stub nose pliers to bend or twist it. These pliers were like $2 or $3 at a cheap chinese import shop. Don't heat them so hot that the metal sprays, though.
I've found that putting a twist in one side of the pliers' jaws works best for making round holes as the flat sides face inwards and the round sides face outwards. Make sure the flat sides slide past each other. I file them at an angle for that purpose.
Best pliers to use are the ones with a spring in them.
You can do the whole thing in 5 - 10 minutes.
No more tungsten pick problems :P
But if you really want to use the tungsten, angle the flame so it heats up the pick, but the flame doesn't touch the piece you're putting the hole in. This will avoid the fuming that Deb is talking about.

[glowinglass]

You have to get it hot to pierce with it.

But, like others have said, the tungsten is getting too hot. You just barely need the flame to hit it. If you do get tungsten fume on the glass, you can burn it off easily in the flame.

The pick - tungsten, stainless, graphite - merely opens the hole already made by the peter's tweezers following a second re-heat to soften it a bit. You're not really trying to melt through a glass that melts around 2800 degrees with a hot poker are you?

[HWCGlass]

Tungsten maintains a stable temp higher than the melting point of boro; which is a hell of a lot lower than 2800.

[Mr. Meker]

Tungsten melts at 5555F and can not be melted in a neutral oxypropane flame. Oxidizing flames can light the metal on fire and then the heat of the metal buring can melt it self.

[Alaska]

Tungsten maintains a stable temp higher than the melting point of boro; which is a hell of a lot lower than 2800.

Best that I could find on the net is that the boro softening point is at 1508 F with the working point at 2273 F. This perhaps will vary somewhat depending on color and brand.

Simax working 2300 F
Simax softening 1508 F

Druan working 2300 F
Duran softening 1517 F

[HWCGlass]

Softening point is a hard term; your kiln at 1500 will do a lot of damage.

TPing a piece of boro is an activity of serenity; a task for the calm and confident mind. Using force? Then you are doing it wrong. Like a hot knife through butter.

I have no idea how many TP holes I have made in my years of bead making; ten plus thousand for sure.

[Cosmo]

The pick - tungsten, stainless, graphite - merely opens the hole already made by the peter's tweezers following a second re-heat to soften it a bit. You're not really trying to melt through a glass that melts around 2800 degrees with a hot poker are you?

The heat of the tungsten melts the glass. I've never used peters tweezers. Never even heard of them, actually. I pierce all the way through with tungsten. I've actually pierced a 1" marble all the way through with tungsten at a demo just to show it could be done.

I've done probably 1000 loops like this in the past couple years. It's pretty much the only way I make loops any more.

[Bunyip]

There's a thousand ways to skin this cat - but drilling with hot tungsten is probably one of the easier methods. Handy Andy's do the work of peter's tweezers AND a tungsten pick - they may be worth a look: http://www.galacticglass.net/ Just squeeze 'em in the middle of a blob of hot glass, rotate while holding closed, viola, instant hole. You can reheat the glass and use the handy andy's to open it more or use the reamer of your choice.

[debkauz]

I love my Handy Andy's! I have trouble with the tungsten pick so the HAs are terrific for me. I've actually melted through my tungsten pick more than once. It's a lot shorter than it was when I got it. ;)

[Jamn!]

I will heat the pick and push it through so it pokes a bit out the other side then heat from the glass side to give it a bit more heat to push it though.

Peters tweezers are sweet! I bought mine at Arrowsprings.

OMG seriously all these #s? You can use a Tungsten rod to poke through boro. It works and works well. If you heat the tungsten too hot it does smoke. its TOO HOT! :lol: Everyone who has used tungsten has probably done it because otherwise you don't know how hot to get the rod before you poke. I melted a tip but then I melted the tip on a brass reamer too when I didn't realize the tip was still in the flame while working a pendant from the other side... :hide:

[fyrsmith]

You can also clean the gunge left by a too hot tungsten pick out of the hole with a diamond bead reamer. Do it in water and you get a nice smooth hole.

[Jamn!]

I hope after its cooled Don!! Hahahaha!

[debkauz]

I do better if I get a small hole started with my Handy Andy's and then use my brass reamer to enlarge it.

[Plays With Fire]

Thanks for all the information. It is all very interesting. I even talked to the lady that I purchased the tungsten pick from and she had no idea why it was smoking. I will get a new tungsten pick and try not getting it so hot and even heat the glass a bit more before using it.
I didn't try to use the tungsten pick until a few weeks ago and was having wonderful results until I got it too hot from the sound of it.
Before I started using the pick, I just made my loops freehand and then used my graphite pick or rod to shape the hole and keep it open. I was a bit shaky at times and my loops worked out most of the time but not always.

[Cosmo]

It's smoking because you are getting it too hot. You should be able to use the one you have unless you burned through it...

[debkauz]

You don't need a new one. Just use some sandpaper or steel wool to scrub the yellow crud off and it'll be fine. You can resharpen the point too.

[Cosmo]

You don't need a new one. Just use some sandpaper or steel wool to scrub the yellow crud off and it'll be fine. You can resharpen the point too.

You don't even need to clean it.

[patezd]

And I've been doing it wrong all this time! I use Peter's Tweezers to make the dents, then heat the GLASS and push the tungsten pick through, heat the glass again and enlarge the hole with the tungsten until I get the size I want. I guess I'll have to start heating the tungsten instead and see what kind of results I get.

[ginkgoglass]

Deb, I do it the way you do it and like it much better than heating the tungsten. There is usually more than one way to do something and that way works for me.

[Bunyip]

Yep, I'd suggest trying both ways and doing what works best for you and your art :) (I still highly recommend Handy Andy's, esp if you're a heat the glass kind of gal ;))

[patezd]

I would love a pair of Handy Andy's! I just bought the farm so I'll have to save up my pennies until I can afford to get some! :)

[ginkgoglass]

I have pair of Handy Andy's but you can also just get a pair of needle nose pliers and bend them.

[glowinglass]

Thank you all for your input, especially the technical tidbits from HWCG and Cosmo - found it very enlightening, and will tweak my technique a bit.....

[Bunyip]

I have pair of Handy Andy's but you can also just get a pair of needle nose pliers and bend them.

Those are more like peter's tweezers (the bent needle nose that is). Handy Andy's have chisel edged Tungsten tips which make things a lot easier, can take heat & won't stick to glass.. :)

edit: But whatever works best for YOU is what you should use :)

[ginkgoglass]

You are right Chris, I do have the peter's tweezers, not the Handy Andy's. And a pair of bent nose pliers.