How To Make Blown Glass Christmas Ornaments - Whats Melting?

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In this upload I make a couple silver fumed hollow Christmas ornaments.

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The first ornament was made by fuming a blank of 32x4mm simax with .999 fine silver followed by adding dots of clear glass over the fume. Once the dots are finished next the piece is heated evenly and puffed out into a globe shape. It can take a few repeated steps of heating puffing and condensing the glass to blow out and nice even round shape. Once the ornament has been shaped I pop a hole near the blow tube to avoid a vacuum being created when the blow tube connection is condensed and closed up to form the loop of the top.

The second ornament is made with a profiled tube which has ridges that run down the length of the inside wall. Careful application of heat is applied so these lines are preserved while heating twisting and puffing out the form. To much heat can remove the waving shape made by the line and those waves in the glass are what catch light and give this kind of ornament much of its visual interest. Silver is applied part way through the process of blowing out the globe shape again. Once the globe shape is achieved I repeat the steps to make a loop for hanging.

00:20 Handling up to blank
01:05 Dividing and sizing the tube
02:24 Silver fuming
02:55 Adding dots
05:20 Melting in dots
05:45 Puffing out the shape
08:30 Using grabbers to make the loop
10:16 Ornament number two
11:07 Sectioning the contour tube
11:38 Heating and twisting the tube
12:06 Initial puff
12:53 Silver Fuming
13:29 Heating to puff final shape
14:43 Finishing the Ornament