I've made a couple and basically I just "freehand" the design. That way I'm not infringing on someone else's and every one is unique. The hardest part I have is completing both ends nicely since it is a little tough to simply punty up to the done end while working the other end. I mean hey, it's cooling...how do I go back and flame polish it now? My solution has been to "flame anneal" as I work down the shaft. All the carbon cooks off in the kiln (and yes, I increase my annealing times substantially) and it allows me to go back to the other end to do the minor amount of work to take off the holding rod and clean up the mark. Smooth and punty scar free is far more crucial here than with some piddly little pendant. Even still, I still get a fair amount of loss from cracking. The one up on my site (see below for addy) that has the teardrop handle ended up that way because a sizable portion got wrecked by a breeze when my wife came to visit the workshop.
I tried hot fingers but they don't grip deep enough to give me the leverage I need to keep the piece from moving inside the tool. Sounds much dirtier than it is, trust me.
If you want to see the few I've made, have a look at my site, munkinarts.com. There's not a lot up there now, I've been focusing on ornaments at the moment so I can do some small craft shows locally this fall.
Tom
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