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

subscribed... looks like you'll be going all out

very cool, how much did all of this all cost you for this kind of set up?

prototypeone said:

very cool, how much did all of this all cost you for this kind of set up?

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You should read the post.

Wow man goin all out!! GO BIG OR GO HOME!!!

Subscribed!! When I was younger I really wanted to get into glass blowing, can't wait to see what you turn out!

how much is a set up like that cost

$3200, I'm psychic.

Nice man lets see the first piece you made.

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

Subscribed

subbed

ive always wanted to get into glassblowing, but dont have the funds...

I havent had much time to spend on the pipe making yet. The first two 150-sized Oxygen tanks ran out after only 2 days of "working". Had to get them replaced, and will probably want an Oxygen concentrator to save on the costs of this part of the trade.

Here's a picture of the first pipe I actually made. It took about 5 tries of tubes cracking and breaking and generally me not knowing wtf to actually do. It's pretty large for a straight spoon pipe, and it hits like a small steamroller. The cracks in it are from me not annealing the piece. Didnt want to spend $12 to anneal my first piece when it looks like garbage. =) Oh, and sorry for the pipe looking dirty. I wanted to smoke it well before my desire to take pictures of it. "Its only tobacco in it" lol.





What I've learned so far is that this craft is really backwards. You really have to plan every step perfectly to make the right pipe.

So that's where I am right now with no learning, no training, and only watching poor quality youtube videos that really dont show much to begin with. Books help a little bit, but there arent many books on pipe making, you basically have to read their hollow/solid technique and then figure out how to apply that to pipes. Not terrible, but not ideal either!

Will update soon as there's more to show. Have half of a pipe ready now, finishing it up this afternoon!

TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO GET INTO THIS: Its expensive, time consuming, and a huge learning curve. Be prepared for it!!

awesome I'm watching

aha wicked pipe. cant wait until you can make yourself some awesome stuff

Still havent tried color yet. I wanted to get the foundation of a real pipe down first before getting cute and pretty.

Made this last night. Just as I was done, I decided to heat up the bowl end again to remove some teardrops on the end, and hear tink tink tink, cracked it like a mofo. Took an hour to get it to look like this. Woops! Each time making a pipe I learn something new, some technique that makes things easier. Getting there, slowly...... This time I learned how to make the bowl too big and cause a carb to be hard to blow. Next time I'll use it.

researchkitty said:

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I think i found this exact same piece in my gf's dresser drawer. i don't think she smokes out of it though.

Nice setup, your into some serious blowing.

damn nice you went balls deep! i wish you the best of luck looks like fdd got some competition or some mentoring ahead of him.

subscribed and excited.