Implosion techniques?

[ajwhite]

I've been trying implosion pendants lately - just circles of dots melted in and then adding more dots. Does anyone know how to do different types of flowers? I tried lines in a circle but I must have done something wrong - it didn't look like a flower at all. I would really like to do a water lilly (I have a good friend who is a Buddhist) but I'm not even getting close. Maybe these are really closely guarded secrets because I have searched and searched and have found zilch.

Also, I'm using soft glass (haven't taken the boro plunge yet) and for pendants, it is really hard to keep rod cool enough behind the maria when imploding - usually gets all droopy. I tried puntying up to a boro rod but I'm afraid of compatability issues when I break/burn the punty off.

I hope this is somewhat understandable - just ran back from the torch with way too many questions in my head!

Thanks for your help
Audra the implosion challenged

[Mr. Smiley]

They are as endless as your imagination. I just printed up a page full of circles for my class this weekend. Draw your ideas out on paper. Try different lines and try poking the center of each line in just a bit. With tungsten pick or a butter knife... what ever and watch how it changes the final look of the petals. Try to keep notes and learn to think about how it will look, based on what the glass is doing when it implodes. It moves in a pretty specific way and you can control it with practice. As far as your glass melting too much, slow it down. Work further out... less heat equals control with soft glass. Post your results... I'll try to post more when I get back in town.

[baylie]

make a disk...or close the end of a tube...Try drawing a spiral...rake from the outer edge to the center..then collapse or 'implode'.....implode sounds so violent...hehe

[ajwhite]

I'll try the spiral - I tried one and it ended up looking like a brain. Maybe my sprial was too close together? Brent - I'll post results when I can make something other than a lumpy flower or brain! I need to get bigger diameter rods - just ran out of my 14mm clear and the 8mm just doesn't hold up to the heat - regardless of how slow I work. Time to spend more money...

[Heather/Ericaceae]

For 8mm, you could reinforce the "neck" by letting it thicken into a huge gather, rolling it into a 10-14mm cylinder at the end of the 8mm rod, then melting and maria-izing the end of the fattened cylinder. I used to do something like that. It's a big PITA, though - better to just get bigger rods!

I like Smiley's suggestions. You can implode anything! Faces, spirals, frit, words, millis... It takes practice to do it well (I'm still very hit and miss) and it's much harder in soft glass than boro because of the shocking hazard, but you'll be able to do some gorgeous things if you keep at it!

Cheers - Heather