Stumpsucked

Here are some results from the fun I have been having with Brandyn - I included links at the bottom of this post for my explanations as to what "Stumpsucking" is and what the tools look like.

Basically what you are looking at is my tiny little sculptures encased in a solid clear glass paperweight.

The little gecko (also could be a salamander) turned out great

the rocket ship was fun, gave us all sorts of other ideas...

Brandyn had made a bunch of octopuses on clear patties - they looked like spiders in the end :)

my beetle looked better before encasement... the antenna fell in the hot glass (they were soo skinny and tiny) and its just not that clear to see what it is...

the bee was pretty funny looking before and after! but it turned out pretty great, the wings didn't move a bit, the pollen on the legs is still there and visible... this one also gave me ideas... for instance making a bee hovering above a flower!

Next I am going to encase some ladies doing yoga...

More blogging about stumpsucking:

• Pictures from Stumpsucking
• Stumpsucking Today

Pictures from Stumpsucking

Above and below are pictures of the same little octopus - above you can see it is encased in clear glass and made into a paperweight, below is what it looked like beforehand. So exciting. The picture above was taken spur-of-the-moment... so it leaves some to the imagination... you'll just have to believe me for now that it turned out pretty great and totally 3D inside the paperweight.

And now for some action shots! I was having fun with my camera while Brandyn sweated and did all the hard work :) Until my camera battery ran out...

Here I am setting up for the sucking... we preheated the little things in the pipe-warmer on a metal plate... nothing fancy but it seemed to work great. Also preheated the stumpsucker with a hand torch that you can see resting on the table.Brandyn seemed to need about a 2 dip gather to pick up the little things in this 1 1/2" stumpsucker. It was actually quite easy (although to be fair he did all the work!)can you see the octopus inside this glass in the picture below? This is after another dip was taken over the encasement...After some shaping with a neat steel marble mold we turned them into paperweights and put them in the annealer. It was pretty cool... I look forward to doing it again. More pictures to come of the finished paperweights... I am going out of town (visiting Tim's family in PA) and I won't get to play more with this until I get back (including taking pictures of the finished paperweights).

Stumpsucking Today

Today I am stumpsucking some glass! Okay, yes, that does sound funny. I agree :)

Above is pictured a sad and shocked little tiny frog that I made and tried to encase using a tool called a "Stumpsucker". This little guy was made years ago. Today I am dusting off the ol' tool and trying again! This makes me very excited. I had to blog about it!
Here is another sad sorry attempt at encasement with the stumpsucker. This orange lady looks terrible now and she is covered in bubbles. If the object I am encasing is too cold, bubbles will get trapped. Too hot and she morphs and distorts as the clear glass encases her.
This is what the tool looks like. The black piece of graphite with the hose coming off it is the stumpsucker itself. I attached it to a tripod and put some silver Kevlar stuff around the rubber hose... its a strange and annoying tool. Too small and too awkward to really get the job done. We'll see how it goes today! I'll be sure to take pictures and share afterwards as well.

The inside of the stumpsucker has a plate with holes... so you put your little glass intricate thing in the cavity and get a gather of glass and basically suck that hot clear glass down around your little object. Simple eh? Hard to master.

Previously I have tried to work with borosilicate when playing with my stumpsucker. Today I am trying softglass. Specifically 96coe. Here is a collage picture of my little handful of things that I made up to encase. The beetle turned out stunning (if I say so myself!) and a few things lost some legs... but you know. Its stumpsucking DIY time. The name of the tool is funny and the process is humbling... but I love making little intricate things, putting them into paperweights would be a dream come true.

Years ago when I purchased the tool I tried a few times and got frustrated. Put it in a box and walked away. A few days ago a friend from Aquila mentioned they were wanting to try this and didn't know anyone with this tool - I lit up at the opportunity and made some quick plans to give a whirl this afternoon. Very exciting stuff. I am meeting up with Brandyn down at Elements glass (where he teaches intro to glass blowing classes) to attempt to stumpsuck our little creations.