Hello Don:
Thank you so much for the great instruction! Your photos are very good, which is a great help for the language challenged. The forked punty hints at some glassblowing experience, and is a great touch if one is keeping the lobes of equal height. Best of all is the twisted loop, which is so much easier and esthetically pleasant in this application. I used a Stanley knife blade to pull the crease, which worked for the boro if the gather was hot enough. Your method is genius, I thought that maybe a metal pet flea comb might work for this also.
I have made on mandrel hearts before, but this technique allows greater freedom to display the result. Images below in order of manufacture, examples are taken from a total of 19 that I made, I didn't want to bore you with the rest!..I didn't anneal any of the ones pictured....
Images #1, 2 and 3 are soft glass. Images #4, 5 and 6 are boro. Interestingly, although they appear to be around the same size in the photos, the last one is considerably larger than the first!
Thank you so much for the great tutorial!
Now..., if only I could achieve the colors that Brent gets from boro!!
Images below are boro.
