Wanted flower sculptures for paperweights

[Debsan]

I'm playing with Stump Suckers for mini paperweights and I want to add flower sculptures. I've made a few--well, they almost look like flowers, I'm sure there must be a much better way to make much better ones. Has anyone any tips or aware of a tutorial?? I'm using soft glass.

Thanks,

Deb

[Emily NZ]

First of all you need to work incredibly small. Use a needle flame, melt a very small ball on a previously formed cane/stringer of choice. Using your tweezers flatten slightly, pull and flame cut. This will give you petals or leaves, depending on what cane you used.
Keep them on a hot plate, make more than you think you will need.
Then assemble flower by using a stringer of the leaf stem colour. Form a tiny ball and add a dot of colour for the flower centre. A milli can look good too.
Pick up a petal and flash in the flame, carefully spot heat the place you want to attach it to and the base of the petal, attach and pull slightly so you don't leave a blob or crease. Repeat until you have the petals on in the way you desire.
Warm your tweezers and holding the flower, gently shape the stem and attach some leaves where appropriate.Usually you can curl the stem so it isn't too high. Put a layer of frit in contrasting colours on the base of your stump sucker perforations.
Lower your little flower design so it is in the centre.
Next is the tricky part......
Using a very fine flame heat from above the flower setup, keep it all warm but not so hot that it will disfigure or slump.
Have someone else (or if you have the skill) melt a large blob of clear glass.( It does help to skim off any imperfections before melting.)
keeping the flower assembly warm, put end of tube in your mouth, bring your clear gather over to the stump sucker, position over top, bring it down and SUCK !.
No matter how hard you suck you won't get hot air or anything like that...or at least I never have! there is a good filter in the tube lline for a reason!.

Hope this helps, it has been a few years since I have had mine out to play, so trust my memory s OK!
Emily

[Debsan]

Emily,

Thanks for the tips. It's pretty much what I've been doing, except I was using my bobcat to make the flowers and wasn't getting the small flame I needed. I think I'll use the Smith Little Torch for that work (duh). I know that lots of practice will make such a difference, but I wanted to be sure I was practicing the right steps. When I see some of the ones done right-they are so awesome!!

Thanks again,

Deb

[Emily NZ]

You're welcome Deb.
Just got to think really really tiny as everything is magnified by the clear encasement.
Emily

[hummingbird3172]

I always wondered how that was done! Also wondered what a Stumpsucker was used for...THANK YOU!

[ReeBird]

Loren Stumps class I is awsome and you will learn how to make the flowers and how to use the stumpsucker!!!!!!!!! And his classes are fun!!!!!!!!!

[xtine sutter]

Oh Cool! I was wondering about how that was done! now I'll have to sign up for his workshop when he is in town again! woo!

[fireflykat51]

You kick butt Emily I just got mine! Now I get to try it

[Cosmo]

When I make small things like that - which is not very often - I use a Smith Little Torch for it. It's a soldering torch, but runs on oxygen and propane. It's very small, and has interchangeable tips to make the flame many different sizes. It's great for detail work.

[tonnia]

Does anyone have a picture of a stump sucker in action? I would like to see how that works.
Thanks,
Tonnia

[Jinx]

Originally Posted by tonnia

Does anyone have a picture of a stump sucker in action? I would like to see how that works.
Thanks,
Tonnia

Me too!!!!!!

[Emily]

There's not that much to take a picture of. It's a graphite cup with a hole in the bottom that has a piece of tubing attached. There's a perforated graphite disk inside. You cover the disk with frit and put the set-up that you want to encase on it. To encase, you get a big gather of encasing glass hot on the end of a punty and come straight down into the cup. You've got the tubing in your mouth, and at the right moment, you suck in, and it vacuums the glass in and the air out. (This is sort of an oversimplification, because you have to warm the set-up at the same time you're heating the encasing glass, which means you need to (1) have six arms; (2) have somebody else do it; or (3) be Loren Stump.)

Anyway, if someone took a picture, what you'd see would be a graphite cup with a bunch of little glass flowers sitting on a pile of frit in it. Next you'd see someone with a small hand-held torch warming up the glass flowers in the graphite cup while someone else heated a hockey puck of glass on a punty in a big torch. Next you'd see hockey-puck person, looking hot and nervous, with a piece of surgical tubing in his/her mouth, sticking the punty vertically into the graphite cup. Next we hope you'd see hockey-puck person, flushed but triumphant, lifting a ball of glass out of the graphite cup and moving it rapidly over to the torch. After that you need to switch it to another punty and add more glass to finish the bottom.

[InspirationToolworks]

How do you avoid any trapped air? I know that's what the vaccuum is for, but it is just amazing that it works that well.

-Jeff

[SteveWright]

I make my inclusions with my National 8M torch turned down low, and oxidizing. I attach leaves with my Little torch. I also attach a clear sprue to the back of the inclusion to anchor it in the center of the chamber.




Steve

[glasscove]

Originally Posted by InspirationToolworks

How do you avoid any trapped air? I know that's what the vaccuum is for, but it is just amazing that it works that well.

-Jeff

The avoidance of air bubbles is a combination of making sure the glass is hot enough, and the floral layout is such that air cannot get trapped.

[Emily]

Originally Posted by glasscove

The avoidance of air bubbles is a combination of making sure the glass is hot enough, and the floral layout is such that air cannot get trapped.

Not that it has to be florals, of course. One thing I think I remember from the fog of sleep deprivation and information overload that was my Loren I class a couple of years ago was that nothing in the set up should be completely horizontal. Everything was at an angle, at least slightly, to keep air pockets from forming.

[Crazy Woman]

Here's looking down into the bottom of the stump sucker while being heated with the little torch


Here's Loren's setup ~ with my jellyhead



Watching Loren make the scuba diver complete with face, mask, tank and regulator was incredible!

[BarbaraB]

Another tip that I learned from Loren is to NOT TOUCH your finished components with your fingers. Keep them in a tightly closed container until you are ready to do the setup. Ball flowers especially show if you handle them.

[Jinx]

Any pictures of the finished scuba one

[Dreamscapes Studio]

If I may ... add one more little tip ... make murrini stringers to use for the flower petals and leaves. It gives lots of shade variations. Make your own stamen murrini by striping and then clear encasing, striping, clear encasing (several times) them pull it into a stringer to use it for your stamens.

Oops ... one more tip ... don't forget the "3 P's" ... Patience, Practise, Perseverence

HEAVY on the Practise and I agree the Smith Little Torch has a great size flame for doing this.

Good Luck and HAVE FUN!

[debgay]

The other flower that looks real cool Is use a stinger of green then take a blue rod and make small dots on it it kind of looks like a lilac or lupine it doesnt trap air because it doesnt have big gaps.

[Rose Leslie]

I loved his class. Awesome. I would love to do this again. Onlyi would like to buy a little smith torch. Along with a stump sucker. That is awesome to use. Yes it is so much fun. I would do it again. Loren Stump is the best teacher around. ONe that has more staying power that I have ever seen in one person. Just awe inspiring.

[Rose Leslie]

I don't know how not to get air pockets. Only it works. Ihave my paper weight here. It doesn't have any. Just amazing to see.