Making A Fish Sculpture or Pendant Using a Texture Masher
 

Shawn just added a tutorial in the boro section on how to make a boro glass fish, but I thought that you might want to see it translated into soft glass, which also works beautifully. For now, I've just brought over the photo from the boro room, but I'll get a specific soft glass photo here for you shortly. Meanwhile, have fun!

Making A Fish Sculpture or Pendant Using a Texture Masher

Materials Needed:
Clear 1/2" rod (it can be totally scummy)
Silver Glass Rod - Try Thallo (Double Helix) or Picasso (R4)
Clear 4mm rod
Color Rod for fins (In the directions I use cobalt transparent)
Color Rod for fish lips
Texture Masher Tool
Tweezers, Tongs or Hemostats
Knife Edged Tool



1. Encase the end of your 1/2" clear with a thin layer of silver glass. Heat & condense a 1/2" by 1" gather (blob). Crimp the gather with mashing tool. A dark color works well to show off the reduction, but try any "fish colored" silver glass you've got. You'll be hanging onto the rest of that clear as a punty.

2. Reduce and then rake the mashed design with 4mm clear rod. Rake at a right angle to the ridges until completely encased. I like to put on stripes that aren't touching, then reduce again, then "fill in the blanks." Remember to reheat between each stripe!

3. Apply enough heat to make surface smooth. Add a 4mm punty (or grab with tweezers - don't tell him I said that) and pull into desired fish body shape.

4. Choose a second color of silver glass or a regular glass color. This will be your fish's lips and also serve as a punty for the time being. Attach to future location of the fish's lips. Separate the fish from the thick clear rod and remove any excess glass.

5. Wipe on a bead of cobalt where the fins should be. Remember you need to heat that glass enough so that you have no unndercuts, but not so much that you lose the shape. Crimp cobalt with mashing tool and use a stringer or 4mm rod to pull the fins into a more graceful shape. Remember to rewarm your glass between each of these substeps otherwise you'll hear that dreaded "ting!" Add eyes (milis work best). Hold body securely with prewarmed tongs or tweezers and remove punty off mouth, leaving a small amount. Heat that amount and make the lip shape by pressing into it with a knife edged tool.

If you'd like to add a loop, so ahead and do it now, but remember to continue warming your fish otherwise he'll get too cold. Warm the whole fish and pop into your kiln.

Thanks, Hannah! I looked at Shawn's new tools too, very nice.

--Helene

Thank you Hannah!!!

Oh my Hannah, this is awesome. Thank you for sharing.

Fabola! Thanks muchly--can hardly wait to try this!

Finally!

Here's the soft glass fish. I made a base of ivory on a mandrel and encased it in some sort of silver glass (sorry, no idea, I'm terrible at labeling things, but I'm also silver glass impaired so if I can make this then you can). Then I reduced him and followed the steps above. I kinda wished I had squished him a bit more, but I was worried about the mandrel and you can still see the pattern of the mashers. The fins were also made with the texture mashers.

I haven't cleaned the bead separator out of him yet.

Ok, just in case you aren't into fish, I also made two beads using the texture mashers.

Below - I made a base bead of white and encased in some sort of silver glass. Then I opened the texture mashers all the way and rolled the bead over the mashers. I reduced heavily, then encased. Because the texture mashers chill the glass at different rates, I got all kinds of colors and trails when I struck the glass.


Below - I made a base bead of white and encased in some sort of silver glass. Then I opened the texture mashers all the way and rolled the bead over the mashers. I reduced heavily, then encased. There were some areas I didn't dig (I'm really silver glass impaired) so I festooned with some flowers.