The water that I bring out fresh each time I go to work on my torch, is kept close at hand (hand being the key word here). The first place you want to stick your hand if you happen to burn yourself, is right into that water - and keep it there while the cool water draws out the heat of the burn. If you happen to drop a marble in your lap (done that), and your clothes burn, you can simply grab around the outside of the burnt hole and dunk it in the water.
The water serves other purposes as well. When working with tools such as pliers, tweezers, mashers, etc., you can dip the end of the tool in the water to cool it off so that it does not get so hot that the glass piece or the glass itself doesn't begin to stick to it. Even if it does, a quick dunk in the cool water and a bump on the bottom will release the glass that was stuck to the tool.
Another good use of the cool water is when you are making marbles and using steel punties (handles, instead of the "mandrels" used to make beads that need a hole in them). As soon as you remove one punty to switch to another to work on the opposite side of the marble, the hot punty goes right into the water. This way, you don't need to worry about placing it on some surface nearby that may burn - and the punty is now ready to be used again for the reverse side during your work if needed.
The towel you see next to the water is soaked with either water or window cleaner so that I can wipe off any new glass rod that I am about to heat up in the flame. While most dust and debris tends to simply burn off of the glass as you heat it, I prefer not dealing with that process - especially when working with clear, which has its own set of problems in terms of keeping it clear throughout the process for a sparkling clear end product.
No comments:
Post a Comment