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<strong>Flame</strong><br />
August 2014
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In this issue …<br />
Torchlight on …<br />
Nicky Townsend<br />
Page 4<br />
Members’ beads from last month’s challenge:<br />
Page 6<br />
Make a bead, set of beads, focal, mixed<br />
media, on or off mandrel piece using the<br />
theme of ‘Flowers’ or the technique of<br />
shards.<br />
Post your photos on www.frit-happens.co.uk<br />
and/or www.craftpimp.co.uk and/or our<br />
Facebook page by<br />
All members' photos will be included in the<br />
August issue of the GBUK
Nicky Townsend<br />
My lampworking journey began in the summer of 2012. As a<br />
jewellery designer for almost 10 years I had always been<br />
addicted to buying lampwork beads to use in my designs. My<br />
ultimate dream was to one day learn the art of lampwork so<br />
that I could create my own beads to use in my work.<br />
In 2010 I attended my first <strong>Flame</strong> Off. After watching Lorna<br />
Prime’s demo I was in awe; I had always admired her as an<br />
artist and to see her at work was amazing. I spent most of<br />
that weekend on the torches and knew then that I just had to<br />
follow the lampwork path...<br />
I was lucky enough to be<br />
invited for a short break at<br />
Debbie Dew’s a couple of years<br />
ago; we enjoyed playing with<br />
fire and glass in her studio and<br />
she taught me the basics. By<br />
the end of the week I was<br />
totally hooked! Debbie had<br />
some kit that was surplus to<br />
requirements and I left Cardiff<br />
with a Mini CC torch and an<br />
oxycon - I was soooo excited!<br />
My dream had come true.<br />
I now work in a converted<br />
summer house (shed) at the<br />
top of my garden - oh, how I<br />
love that place.<br />
After 2 years I still very much see myself as<br />
a 'newbie' there is still so much to learn. I'm<br />
mainly self-taught but I love buying and<br />
following tutorials and trying new things.
I'm still working on my unique style but I love to<br />
use lots of silver, I enjoy the organic look and feel<br />
of silver leaf and foil, the reactions that silver<br />
creates with some glass amazes me. I like to<br />
experiment with different colours and types of<br />
glass to produce beads that are eye catching.<br />
I work with 104 coe glass and mainly make sets of beads with just the odd<br />
focal every now and again. I'd like to try and develop my work with focals at<br />
some point. Keeping those bigger beads warm and preventing cracks is a skill I<br />
need to work on… I'm loving my lampworking journey.<br />
Follow your heart - Dreams really can come true...<br />
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TheFyreFaerie<br />
www.facebook.com/thefyrefaerie
‘Summer’
‘Murrini ‘
Making murrini<br />
Golden Brown<br />
by Heather Kelly<br />
These are some murrini I made with Reichenbach 96 coe<br />
glass.<br />
1. Make a small cylindrical plug of iris brown on the end of<br />
your punty. Heat the bare steel just enough for a very<br />
slight glow and add one wrap of glass at the end, then<br />
build the plug outwards from there. Use a marver to roll it<br />
on and flatten the end. That gave the darker end on this<br />
picture - the iris brown struck a little. The gather will get<br />
large after adding all the layers, so start small.<br />
:<br />
The base I used for these was<br />
Reichenbach RW4291 dark olive.<br />
2. Encase this in a layer of curry. Wrap slightly off the end<br />
of your plug and melt and marver it over. This makes it<br />
easier to attach a punty to all the colours of glass at the<br />
end. At the punty end, tuck the glass in so it just touches<br />
the steel. Again, this will anchor it. Melt in and smooth<br />
down after each encasing layer.<br />
Reichenbach RW0762 iris brown<br />
Reichenbach RW0120 curry<br />
Reichenbach RW0107 iris opal<br />
yellow<br />
Reichenbach RW0191 iris amber<br />
Reichenbach RW0175 pastel green<br />
3. Encase in iris opal yellow.<br />
4. Encase in iris amber, which is a dark rich transparent<br />
that can strike to all sorts of colours - you can see some<br />
in the next pictures after it has struck more.<br />
One punty for building your<br />
murrini - I use a stainless steel<br />
chopstick, or the end of a thicker<br />
mandrel will also work (no bead<br />
release).<br />
I don't use glass for this end so<br />
there's no need to worry about<br />
thermal shock.<br />
One glass rod for your other<br />
punty. Clear is best - here I use<br />
the pastel green because I had it<br />
to hand.<br />
Murrini nippers
5. Add six stripes of curry, anchoring at both ends.<br />
This will make sure you don't end up with a stripeless<br />
section after pulling.<br />
6. In between those, add six stripes of pastel green.<br />
This is a very pale green.<br />
big gather). Now take out of the flame, wait a<br />
moment and start to pull, gradually at first. If it<br />
isn't moving, stick it back in the flame. If you<br />
pull too fast, it will get too thin. If you don't<br />
think you can pull it all at once, it's easier to<br />
get your punty rod end pulled to the diameter<br />
you want, then put the steel end back in the<br />
flame and continue pulling in sections. It doesn't<br />
need to be uniform: different diameters of<br />
murrini are useful. If you get a bone-shaped end<br />
on your steel, melt the murrini pull off and put<br />
it down to cool, then make the end into a<br />
twistie.<br />
9. After your pull has cooled, chop it into<br />
murrini chips! I use Leponitt wheeled nippers,<br />
which are great. I hold my cane pointing<br />
downwards into something like an old tall ice<br />
cream container, or anything vaguely bucketshaped.<br />
Tall sides mean the chips don't bounce<br />
back out. Then just squeeze the nippers and the<br />
chips ping in.<br />
7. Melt the stripes in smooth. Then attach your punty<br />
rod to the end. Make a small maria (flattened gather)<br />
on the end of your rod and smoosh this onto the<br />
heated end of your murrini. It's best if it covers all<br />
the circles of colour, so that when you pull, you<br />
don't end up with a section that is only the inside.<br />
(A small section that is mostly the *outside* is more<br />
useful, because it has the stripes and can be used<br />
as cane or made into a twistie).<br />
Note: you can use another steel punty, but you will<br />
want to put a cone of clear on the end of your<br />
gather first, then plunge the steel into that. Again,<br />
this means you have a more even pull and less<br />
waste at the ends.<br />
10. In use. The darker colour is from an<br />
unencased murrini, while the yellower one has<br />
clear over the top. I like them better unencased.<br />
To apply, have the murrini laid out somewhere<br />
you can get to them easily. Pick up your murrini<br />
with tweezers (or hemostats) and flash it through<br />
the flame to warm it, then heat the spot on the<br />
surface of your bead and apply your murrini to<br />
it. Start heating and very gently patting down the<br />
surface with a small flat tool, over and over. If<br />
you smash it flat too fast it will distort.<br />
8. Then heat your gather to molten, focusing the<br />
flame on the centre and not on your punty rod or it<br />
will soften. Take it out of the flame occasionally,<br />
keep rotating, and let the heat sink into the centre<br />
from the surface. (Especially if you've made a really
Dates for your diary …<br />
: Tuffnell Glass, Rudston, Yorkshire YO25 4UD<br />
: 12/13/14 September 2014<br />
: 1000 - 1800<br />
On Friday we will have the torch benches for members to play and / or demo on -<br />
we are hoping there will be some of you willing to share your techniques with our<br />
members; Teresa has offered to show us a trick or two too.<br />
On Saturday the AGM will be at midday.<br />
Sunday is a free day on the torches for those that want to stay for the whole<br />
weekend.<br />
Lunch will be provided in the form of jacket potatoes and toppings.<br />
Please can members bring salad, cake and drinks to share.<br />
Along with the lure of the Tuffnell Glass shop, there will also be other traders selling<br />
lampworking supplies (we will announce the full list nearer the time).<br />
There will be a mini competition, entries to be taken to the AGM, voting to take place<br />
at the AGM, the theme is ‘<br />
The prize will be a £10 voucher to spend with the traders attending the event.<br />
The GBUK Journal is a great opportunity to showcase your work in a high<br />
quality publication. Best of all it is free to submit an entry and all<br />
members who are paid up as of 30 September 2014 will receive a free<br />
copy.<br />
If you would like to have your work included in the next GBUK Journal,<br />
then please read this carefully. We would like you to send one image only<br />
to webmaster@gbuk.org, but, as before, all other required information will<br />
need to be submitted using the online submission form on the GBUK<br />
website or click this LINK.
Martin Tuffnell has been glassblowing for over 20<br />
years and re-launched Tuffnell Glass in 1998 with<br />
his partner Teresa, an experienced beadmaker.<br />
Together they offer custom made beads, teach bead<br />
making and carry a large range of glass and bead<br />
making equipment. They successfully organised the<br />
first <strong>Flame</strong> Off in April 2008 – which was recognised<br />
as the first United Kingdom event that was<br />
dedicated to glass bead making. On the rare<br />
occasions that Teresa is not organising <strong>Flame</strong> Offs<br />
and dispatching glass goodies for lampwork bead<br />
artists all over the UK she has been known to make<br />
rather lovely beads. Martin makes a pretty nifty<br />
glass pig sculpture too!<br />
<strong>Flame</strong> Off is where artists come from all over the<br />
world to share their techniques and experiences.<br />
Glass bead makers and flame workers gather to play<br />
with fire, catch up with friends and learn from each<br />
other. Its a wonderful event full of generous people<br />
who have also supported their Air Ambulance auction<br />
and Raffle every year!<br />
Photo by Richard Downton<br />
Becky Staples<br />
Teresa Blofeld<br />
Martin was elected an honorary member of GBUK in 2012.
www.gbuk.org