Trying My Hand At Glass Pipe Making

I've always wanted to make my own glass, more for the fun of it than a profit. Having been here posting my grow journal and checking in, came across fdd's "bought $100 worth of glass" thread. Saw what he did over the course of a year, and said "Hell yea!"

So thanks man, your my inspiration for this one.

After purchasing everything locally from a glass shop, the total came to $3200. Oops. Initially, figured about $2000, but after the glass guys showed me "what I need"....... I really bought a *lot* of glass though, grabbed sample color sticks and frit from every manufacturer, and a wild assortment of clear. All of the glass is borosilicate, which is the non-marketed term for Pyrex. Since the glass place is about an hour away, the goal was not to have to go back for a long time. Wouldnt you rather return it than have to drive an hour for it?


...the room


Workbench


The torch, a Nortel Red Max, pre-mix torch. Downstairs outside chained to the wall is the Oxygen tank and Propane tanks with regulators and flashback arrestors.


Regulators


Various tools, rollers, graphite paddles, etc..


The scissors were only $7!


Color and kiln


Color rods


Dichroic flats, fun to make stuff with I think.


More color rods and color frit


Wild!


Dichroic images


More of em' along with UV reactant glass


THE BIBLE.....


Kiln.... Paragon Bluebird XL


More


again


Color rods vary once melted in color, so they give you a nice poster.


...or two!


Rods and Tubes of clear...


Pipe tube!


Rods


Chinese colored tube. Cheap and good for practice.


Funky $145 glasses that filter out orange so you can see the glass "through" the flame.


This is the UV Glass. It's on the laptops keyboard and its dark so it glows bright green.


So fun.



.....after about 5 hours, I blew my first pipe. Anyone wanna guess how bad it looks?!? Any tips/comments welcome!!

Kitty

nice purchase! can't wait to see some the stuff that comes out of that room