Start like mentioned before with 20-25mm rod, punty it to 10-12mm(make sure you have a good clean seal) Start at one end and work your way thru the piece. If you work from one end to the other and dont go backwards you should be able to fenangle it w/o any cracking. Once you get to the end remove the 1st punty, very slowly with a LARGE neutral to reducing flame heat up the whole piece to 1 even temp, so its just about moving. This will remove any stress in the piece and make it "relax".
to remove the last punty.....You can do it right at the end ifyou have good armor and can hold a piece of glass straight outta the flame (very hot!) or you can kiln it and cut it off once its sat at 1040 for a bit. If you choose to do the latter it may cause cracking the odd time due to uneven heat in the piece.
You deffenitly do not want to use hot fingers on these, itll scratche the surface, Ive found kevlar gloves or the black carbonized mats to work the best.
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