Making a Vortex Marble with Borosilicate Glass 1.60" hand blown by Bill Grout

[@bradleyjacobs7870]

thank you

[@omalleyglassworks]

Love them tunes Bruh. I hear a little bit of Tool in there.

[@chuckyb3211]

Fucking beautiful

[@bryanwilliams3524]

Awesome. Job I’m a Neon Glassblower. 36 yrs. watching you fab the marble. Was watching amazing quality & craftsmanship. Great job. Great video. I do a little bit of art. Swans. Pendants it’s been fun. Video. Ohh your coffee can roller can I borrow that idea. Lol.

[@BillRaeShow]

I am glad some folks notice the can roller. I had a bunch of small metal scrap to put into it and that worked very well to stabilize it. I hope to do some plasma glass art in the near future. Not looking to do traditional neon, but I love neon!

[@satishsambare5967]

Realy i like were is your factory

[@WilliamGrout]

My shop is at my home in western Montana.

[@dudders___1684]

I don’t have a rod that big, I wonder if I could attempt this one a smaller rod…like 8mm small lol

[@WilliamGrout]

You can scale up or down in size but the smaller your work, the harder it is to control the heat. Glass work is controlled chaos. It must be hot enough to move, but then it gets out of control fast!

[@curtist4580]

How do u add the clear without trapping air?

[@WilliamGrout]

I think the sequence at 5:30 is as clear as I can be. The heating of a small portion at a time right at the rod to marble corner and then pushing that molten bit into the marble will push the air out. Raising the rod immediately will allow the flame to flow any edge that might try to trap air. The stitching motion should do the trick but honestly in this zone, tiny bubbles are not of any concern. Rolling the rod back and forth can also work with the right heat and speed. Stop at any point and blast the base to smooth things out. You can also pick out a bubble with tweezers, especially if it is near the surface.

[@curtist4580]

@@WilliamGrout ok cool, thabks for the response! I'll try it again today. I usually make thes by heating up another gather and basically stabbing the spiral into it but a lot of times it creates a lot of stess or it doesnt look even, so I'm trying to get the hang of using this method instead

[@roberttaylor6108]

The music sounds alot like Justin Chancellor of Tools sound and style.

[@rondayoder6218]

Thank you for the explanations along the way and for the finish show of the product! This is fabulous.

[@BillRaeShow]

Glad if it was helpful!

[@dalestephan]

Amazing! Loved the text explaining your steps. Thank you. And what a great marble.

[@WilliamGrout]

Glad you got something out of this. I enjoy making these videos but just don't find the time often.

[@13Odrade]

WAAW ! Beautiful !

[@jasonbailey3365]

Thanks for sharing I make marbles too , I came for the fume and stayed for the tunes.

[@stevengreenberg7148]

Awesome! Thank you for making the video!

[@muddyatty7389]

idk how I ended up here. But I'm very glad!

[@WilliamGrout]

Thanks for stopping by!

[@geraldineleleannec8351]

That's amazing, where did you learn that?? I would l

[@WilliamGrout]

I am self taught in glass flame work but years ago I did pick up an instructional VHS tape on making one very similar.

[@geraldineleleannec8351]

@@WilliamGrout so it's possible to be self taught, there are no training where I live. Thank for the info.

[@omegalightning5715]

I've just learned about these. Now I want to make them. That one is absolutely beautiful

[@matthewwagner8875]

What in the actual F with that tin can roller, amazing!

[@BillRaeShow]

Matthew Wagner that is how we roll 😊

[@SighsInternally]

what about tempering?

[@BillRaeShow]

Work from the torch goes straight into a kiln idling at 900f during the work day. At the end of the day the programable controller will take the temperature up to annealing for a period of time and then ramp down through steps to near room temperature by the next morning.

[@StricklersGlass]

His work is amazing 😊

[@alf9638]

stunning Bill, thanks.

[@WilliamGrout]

Thanks for stopping by!

[@Jimmy-sb3fc]

Nice demo!

[@WilliamGrout]

Thanks, hope it is useful

[@tingtingli2362]

wow what happened? how come? Final product looks amazing

[@JasonRossi]

That can is a cool idea. And thanks for the backing idea, tungsten pick?

[@BillRaeShow]

Ahh yes, the roller can. Helps to have some scrap metal to fill it up and keep it stable. Nice way to rest work in progress if I need to step away for a moment. The tungsten pick is just common welding electrode.

[@jr6786]

Yeah buddy

[@beil3537]

Thanks for sharing your skill - I do cast glass jewellery and looking for something a bit more spontaneous and a little less labor intensive and I think torchwork like you demonstrated just might be the path I want to follow - You sound like you live such an idyllic lifestyle. Peace and love to you both from Brisbane Australia!

[@BillRaeShow]

Best wishes to you! We aim to share our peace and love far and wide and here you are!

[@dansquires2713]

Help My jaw is permanantly dropped. I will have to communicate via YT from now on. SKILLLLLZZZZZZ

[@BillRaeShow]

Thanks for checking it out!

[@arunpuri238]

Thanking for sharing the making of the vortex marble - Just amazing

[@BillRaeShow]

Glad you liked it! Helps encourage me to do more. Just put up one on making a hummingbird feeder....

[@TherealoneEA]

Was this raked with a tungsten pick?

[@WilliamGrout]

Yes, this is just a TIG welding electrode ground to a point and pressed into a random scrap stainless steel bottle stopper in my case :)

[@thewasatch208]

That tin can roller is genius!!

[@WilliamGrout]

I still use it every day. Having a bucket full of small scrap metal (to add weight for stability) made the "construction" quick and affordable, but I guess some rocks would work the same....

[@monstershug1359]

How come you fume the black fruit, but then put color over it? Interesting and different techniques then I knew. Thanks!

[@monstershug1359]

Black frit*

[@BillRaeShow]

Good question! The back color is not always 100% and is often not completely opaque. A fumed layer can reflect some light and add a back lighting effect. Sometimes this is quite dramatic and other times it may have no visible result. I guess I often use fume layers just in case.

[@monstershug1359]

Yea I guess you can never have too much fume... in my opinion lol. Thanks for the response I learnt a lot.

[@premji4282]

Pls make birds

[@BillRaeShow]

Thanks!

[@nateclishe622]

I may have missed it but it looks like when you fume the silver and gold you are keeping a neutral flame? I could be mistaken but the flame doesnt seem to be changing. awesome video though!

[@WilliamGrout]

For most applications silver fume is done with a slightly reducing flame on a "hot" base and gold fume is done with an oxidising flame on a "cool" base. You can also fume silver with a neutral flame on a "cool" base for more blues. Basically it is all just FM!

[@intruder8245]

Very cool!

[@BillRaeShow]

Thanks for checking it out!

[@alwaysdrained]

you should try putting a crushed opal on the tip of that fumed rod then shove it in... i wonder if it would look like a shooting star with a fumed tail, that would be sick if it worked... have you tried it?

[@BillRaeShow]

That sounds very cool, but lots of ideas I have like that don't often turn out as expected. Opals can cause cracking so I have not gone down that road but there may be other ways to get something like you are suggesting. Thanks for your interest!

[@WhySoitanly]

I must be lost. I thought this was the Led Zeppelin channel.

[@WilliamGrout]

Well if you were lost, I hope you are now found.

[@andrewhamry7760]

Where did you get that graphite stringer holder? I need one!

[@BillRaeShow]

I think what you are referring to is the tungsten pick used for raking. This is a common welding electrode sharpened on the end and jammed into a scrap stainless steel bottle stopper. Random holder but that's what it is.

[@andrewhamry7760]

@@BillRaeShow oh, no, I know about the tungsten pick. I was referring the the tongs he used at the end of the video that he used to help polish his termination. He had mentioned it was a tool he had come up with?

[@BillRaeShow]

@@andrewhamry7760 Still not sure what you are seeing. The only "tongs" I am using are just stainless steel tweezers.

[@andrewhamry7760]

@@BillRaeShow omg I feel so dumb! I was half asleep when I responded. Theres the graphite piece that has notches in it for the stringers. Its at around the 2 minute mark that I first noticed it.

[@BillRaeShow]

@@andrewhamry7760 That was the next thing I thought you might be looking at. If you are referring to the "rod rest" there are two on the table and the one on the right is just painted flat black so might look like graphite. They are just pieces of roof edge flashing that I filed notches in with a round file. Those are easy to make and very useful. I fuse short sections all the time and would burn my fingers picking up the rods from the bench all the time. Seems I always grabbed it right where I had just fused it together! Then I trained myself to keep all hot parts on the far side of the rod rest and problem solved. The only thing to note is that if you don't have the hot part far enough over the edge, you can get chill cracking from the metal.