Last time around, I talked about murrini cane, and the most obvious way to make them in the kiln: A murrini rod mold, AKA “rodpod.”
As I’ve said, I’m not pretending that anything I discuss here is my invention or brand new stuff: Murrini-making is one of the oldest glassmaking techniques. This is just a compendium of methods I use to make murrini in a kiln. You’re welcome to try these; please comment if you have other/better ways of doing this.
Murrini molds certainly can make some beautiful murrini, but it’s a grab-bag affair. The size of your cane is limited to the dimensions of the groove in the mold, rarely more than a foot in length, so the number of murrini per cane is relatively small.
Worse, because the components are harder to keep in place in these molds, canes aren’t particularly reproducible unless you stick with squarish designs. Gravity tends to smoosh everything into a squarish loaf shape, flattening out any round or symmetrical patterns.
Stuff may or may not slide around, so it can be difficult to exactly reproduce the same pattern across multiple cane. If I need to cover two or three square feet with identical murrini, I make two or three times what I need and match it by hand; I usually wind up with two or three totally unusable cane from a rodpod.
BTW, this is part of a series that I still haven’t finished–never knew there were so many ways to make murrini in a kiln. Here’s the rest of the series:
- Murrini cane in a kiln: Sandwiches, Part I
- Kilnformer’s murrini you can buy
- Murrini cane in a kiln: The rod pod
- Kinda like peanuts
When I figured that out, I wanted to see if I could assemble cane components cold, wrap them, and then fire in a kiln to make a real cane shape. The resulting cane can be nicely attractive, even if it does look more like a ciabatta bread slice than an actual round murrini.
I use two methods to assemble these; both involve building the cane out from the center. I don’t know what anyone else calls this, but I call them “jellyrolls,” and they’re easy if a bit tedious.
To make them, you’ll need glass–stringer, strips, rod, noodles. And some scotch tape, the “magic,” frosted-looking stuff. My friend Carol Carson suggested it–she uses that tape to place glass precisely in a grid before fusing, and says it doesn’t leave a residue. (my tests agree with her)
You’ll also need fiber blanket and ThinFire paper, and some hi-temp wire and heavy mullite dams, enough of the latter to dam both sides of your murrini without moving.
For both methods, it helps if you’re working on a sheet of float/plate glass–easier to clean, and you can use the edge of the glass to start your rolls.
Canerolling 1: Bamboo blinds method
Starting a “bamboo blinds” murrini roll; the first rod is laid down on the tape, which is sticky side UP.
Some murrini have variegated cores, like these; they’re great for use in kilnformed murrini
Tear off three strips of scotch tape, two about an inch long, one around 9 or 10 inches long. (These measurements are approximate–don’t get carried away measuring)
The last inch or so of the long piece of tape back on itself, sticky sides together, to make a pulltab, and set the tape down, sticky side UP, on the glass. Tape down both ends with the short pieces of tape, leaving maybe a half inch of the pulltab exposed. (This makes it easy to pull the tape back off the glass.) It’ll look like this:
You’re going to build up your jellyroll from the center out, so start with whatever glass you want to be in the center. I like to use a standard glass rod, and I set it on the end of the tape nearest the pulltab.
For added punch, see if you can find a compatible rod with a variegated center. Bullseye sells a few, and makes many more as special production glasses (below); they’ll give additional detail to your cane.
Wrap a strip of scrap paper all the way around the rod once, marking its circumference. Mark that length on the tape with a Sharpie marker–that’s the first “ring” in your murrini.
Add the width of 2 of the widest components in that ring (1mm stringer here) to the original circumference, multiply by 3.14 and measure out that far for the second mark. Keep doing that until you’ve got four or five rings marked. It won’t be exact, I promise, but it gives you a guide as to how much glass you’ll need for each layer in the cane.
Lay down enough stringer to fill the tape to the first mark–this will be the first ring around the rod. Then lay the second ring, and so on. I like to alternate opal and transparent glass rings and I try to keep the palette pretty simple.
When you’ve filled the tape all the way to the last mark, burnish the glass pieces gently against the back tape to ensure they’re flat and in place. Now take more tape, and run a strip down the middle, cross-wise (above the first tape) on TOP of your glass.
Add a second and third strip at each end and make sure they’re all well-adhered to the glass.
Now pull up on the tab you made and gently lift the entire assembly off your work surface.
It should come away easily and hang in the air like a matchstick bamboo blind; if it doesn’t, smooth the tape down firmly and try again.
Set the assembly back on the glass, with the first rod off the float glass to get things started. Begin rolling it away from you, firmly and tightly, and roll the whole thing up just like a jellyroll.
It takes a bit of practice to do this without disturbing the order of the rods, and it can be difficult to keep the glass tightly rolled.
The instinct is to roll it in the center; actually, you’re better off rolling from either end to ensure the ends are tight. You MUST keep the layers as tightly coiled against each other as possible.
If it gets out of order, unroll it, straighten things out and start again. The assembly will gradually pull itself together and roll in the right direction for you. Eventually, you’ll get a tight roll like this.
Make sure the glass pieces are straight and even all the way out to the ends, then wrap each end in more tape to secure them. That’s pretty much it.
Canerolling 2: Vertical assembly method (with tape)
In method 1 you’re actually creating a spiral coil, and while it goes pretty fast, it’s hard to keep the rings precisely aligned in any semblance of pattern. It also works best with relatively thin, uniform pieces of glass, such as commercial stringer.
If you want to use cut glass strips, lots of noodles and other interesting things, or if you want to more precisely control the pattern, build the cane assembly vertically. Again, this ain’t rocket science, it just takes a bit of coordination.
Start with a rod in the center as before (this isn’t strictly necessary, but a rod gives you a nice foundation to build on). Stand the rod on its end, perfectly vertical, and attach a 5-6 inch piece of tape near the bottom.
Snug the first piece of glass (still vertically) against the tape, bring the tape over to cover it and burnish it down. Add the second piece the same way and move around the rod until you’ve completely surrounded it.
Burnish the tape down over the whole thing and start the second row. If you plan a bit, you can usually build combinations of stringer, noodle, rod, etc. that actually fit evenly around the assembly.
Concentrate on working at the bottom, about two-to-three inches from the work surface. Keep doing this, smoothing and burnishing the tape as you go. The pattern’s a little more controllable this way.
When you’ve got enough, run your hands up the length of the assembly (being REALLY careful if you’re using cut strips), and make sure everything’s aligned. Then tape first the center and then the other end. That’s it.
Prepping for the kiln
If you just toss these in the kiln and fire, the tape will vaporize, the components will spread out and you’ll go through the usual “glass wants to be 1/4 inch” nonsense. Obviously, you need some way to keep the bundle intact enough that it will keep its shape during firing.
Start by wrapping the roll in ThinFire VERY TIGHTLY and taping it up. ThinFire is kinda brittle; if you have trouble getting it to cover the ends of the roll without breaking or bulging, try misting it with a little water to soften it (just don’t soften TOO much or it will fall apart).
The ThinFire has absolutely zip structural integrity once the binders burn out; it’s primarily there to keep the outside of your cane smooth. 1/8 inch fiber paper does the structural work–wrap your ThinFired package in that.
I like to cut a piece that’s about an inch bigger than the diameter of the cane assembly and the same length. Then I cut two more fiberpaper pieces, each just slightly wider than the diameter of the end of the roll and that dimension plus a couple of inches long.
I tape them across each end of the cane assembly, then wrap the whole thing in the big piece of fiber. I tape it every three inches or so to secure the fiber paper and provide a stable base for the next step.
You can fire it as-is, and it will flatten into a capsule shape. The components will slide and distort one another so that you wind up with cane that almost looks like a potmelt. This murrini, for example, started out with twin blue rods in the center, surrounded by amber noodles and a couple rings of red.
Obviously, they were badly pulled apart.
Wiring
Your cane is more apt to keep its shape if you wrap the assembly with hi-temp wire.
Once I’ve finished the fiber paper wrap, I cut enough pieces of wire (about 2x the diameter of the roll) to place one every 3-4 inches down the entire length of the cane.
Starting in the middle, I wrap a wire around the cane, twist the ends together so they lock, and go to the next. (Just twist each side into a “U” shape, then lock them together–they stay reusable that way) I wire only on the taped areas–this keeps me from accidentally tearing away the soft fiber paper.
Where I haven’t (below) you can see how much it cuts in.
You can also wrap three or four ThinFire-wrapped packages together tightly, wrap THEM in fiber paper and wire. You’ll get pieces that are more or less triangular or quarter-circle in shape (right).
Whatever y0u do, the shape will be closer to round if you dam the bundle with heavy mullite brick.
Firing
These are fairly large cane (at least in these examples–you don’t have to use this much glass to make a cane), and they’re extremely well-insulated.
They also have a LOT of air pockets created by the spaces between pieces of glass.
In my kiln, they work best if I fire at about 50DPH between 1000F and 1250F, hold at 1480F for an hour (for you Centigradians, that’s 10DPH between 538C and 677C, hold at 804C for an hour), and then anneal for slightly more than the thickness of the wrapped, pre-fire assembly, about two inches for these cane.
I still get bubbles, so at some point I’ll probably lengthen the process time to see if I can clear a few more.
As always, your kiln’s schedule will be different. You can most certainly pull back on the schedule and see just how little heatwork you can apply and still get a solid cane; sometimes that can reduce distortion.
Chopping cane
The usual murrini choppers that work on rod-pod cane will work on this, up to about a half inch. Beyond that, you’ve got to be pretty strong to even make a mark on the cane, let alone cut it neatly.
The stuff is too precious to saw through–you’ll lose the thickness of the saw blade with every cut. Even if that’s just 1/16 of an inch, it means you’re losing at least a couple of murrini for every foot of cane.
So far the best method I’ve found to chop thicker cane is to give the murrini choppers a bit of an assist with a heavy hammer or sledgehammer. The cane MUST fit into the jaws easily. I position the cane in the choppers, where I want it to split, and squeeze the handles until it’s secure.
Then I whack the top of the choppers (NOT the blade) with the hammer. The cuts this produces can be remarkably thin and even, although I tend to get a lot of offcuts. (If someone knows a better way, speak up, please!)
The pieces fly an amazing distance and they can splinter, so obviously you do this wearing goggles and gloves. It’s best to chop inside a box or enclosure–helps you find your murrini after it’s shot off the end of the cane like a torpedo.
Next steps
So far, no horizontal kiln method I’ve tried produces a perfectly round, distortion-free cane.
Here’s how much they change, even with the double-wrap/wired/heavy dammed treatment:
So at this point, I stop looking at horizontal fusing, and start looking at vertical fusing. And casting. More on that, later.
Hi I’ve jus bought some 1/2 inch stainless steel straws. I was planning to line them with thin fire paper and fill with stringers. Has anyone tried this? Can I fire them horizontally or would they need to be upright? Anyone have any tips??
Hi, Claire;
I’ve done this with stainless steel pipe, but getting it to work consistently takes some doing. First, if the steel walls of your straws are very thin, there’s a danger of the steel flexing and potentially collapsing in the kiln, so I’d test it first with glass you don’t really care much about. (and I’d make sure to either put it in a sand bed or make sure you have lots of kilnwash/thinfire to absorb anything that spills).
Second (and sorry, this really isn’t as complicated as I’m making it sound), since the glass shrinks, if you fire the tube-with-glass horizontally it will tend to settle down toward the underside of the tube as it fuses, flattening the top. If you want a perfect cylinder of glass, you need to fire the tube standing upright (vertically). If you don’t mind the flattened top, it’s not a problem (and the following tips may not apply).
Getting a stainless steel tube to fire in a vertical position takes extra work. I usually mix up some refractory plaster (plaster of paris works) and pour about an eighth of an inch into a small paper cup. I set the tube upright in the cup and let the plaster nearly set with the embedded cup, then pour a little more plaster (perhaps an inch) into the cup on the outside only. This gives the tube a stable base for vertical firing and keeps the glass from spilling out the bottom.
Of course, most glassforming kilns aren’t very deep, which limits the height of the pipe. I usually remove the kilnshelf from my kiln and cut the pipe so that (with its refractory base) it sits about a half-inch below the kiln lid. If your kiln has elements in the top lid (most do), you’ll want to slow down your schedule to keep the heat as even as possible.
It IS possible to fire the tubes at an angle, which lets gives you a little longer cane. I set the tubes in their plaster cups at the angle I want, and then notch a soft firebrick to hold each tube securely. If you pay attention to your angles the cane will have the same angled top and bottom; you can cut these off and put them together to make whole murrini.
Third, you can’t possibly pack the glass so tightly that there’s no space/air between the pieces of stringer, so as the glass begins to fuse, it will pull together, shrink a bit and push out some (possibly most) of the air. What’s trapped will become bubbles. You can mitigate this to some extent with a very long bubble squeeze, but the more air you remove, the more the glass will shrink. Depending on what I’m fusing inside a pipe, I can see as much as 50% shrinkage. Since 1/2 inch is a relatively small tube (I typically work with 2-4 inches in diameter), there will be less shrinkage.
Fourth, thinfire may not be thick enough–the thinfire binder will burn out before the glass really starts to move, most times, and there’s a potential for the glass to drag the fragile thinfire apart as it slides down the straw, causing the glass to stick. I typically use 1/8 inch fiber paper instead–it’s thicker and stronger, so it is less likely to pull apart. Thicker fiber paper has other advantages: It allows more trapped air to escape and minimize bubble production, and it also adds a little more cushioning against the cooling, shrinking steel, make it less likely that the glass will be trapped and crack.
I’m not a trusting person, so I usually heat the tube in the studio toaster oven and pour kilnwash inside, letting it coat the inside. Once it’s dry, I cut a fiber paper strip that’s just slightly wider than the interior circumference of the pipe, roll it up and insert into the pipe, and smooth it into place (you can use a glass rod to ensure it’s smooth all the way down). If you do this before making the plaster base for your vertical pipe, the plaster will also provide a little extra hold to keep the fiber in place.
The downside, of course, is that thicker fiber paper means smaller cane. Also, fiber paper leaves a rougher surface on the glass, one which sometimes can trap small fibers as the glass moves. When you melt in the resulting murrini you can sometimes get a bit of residue bordering the pieces. The fiber can also act as contaminant to promote devitrification (but thinfire does this, too). I normally either sandblast or grind the cane surface, very slightly, before chopping into murrini.
Oh, holy cow, Greg! That stuff is fantastic. I’m trying to get the last couple of firings done for the vertical murrini chunk of this series, and I’ll make sure to include a link to his work there–really meticulous.
Thanks so much for sharing!
sorry, make that Chris Juedemann. Here’s his web site
http://www.glasskitchen.com/
Not a whole lot there but some nice pics of his work
Have you ever happened to stumble across Chris Juedman? He does some wild stuff with stringer stacked into a steel tube. Almost photo type murrini. Here’s a link to his early attempts.
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82993
Very cool guy, I don’t think he makes murrini for sale, but the technique might be transferable.
Hey Sunny. Thanks! Feeling better–doc says it’ll be about a month before my lungs are back to normal, which is kinda icky, but hey.
I’ve done cane in the gloryhole in the way you describe, and love doing it…but this was mostly an exercise to see just how close I could get to classical coin-shaped murrini using only a kiln. Frankly, even the stuff I’m gonna talk about–firing vertically, casting, etc.–isn’t as easy as doing it in a hotshop.
OTOH, the kiln-only approach does make some types of cane a lot easier, and that’s kind of where I’m headed.
I tried the sand approach, only I used tiny steel shot. I’ve also used florist’s foam in much the same way. It works pretty well without trapping grains between components. The tape’s a bit quicker, but maybe I’ll go back and try it with sand, just for the heckuvit. I once had some rancid butter that I thought might work…but the butter melts and then you really have a mess. 😉
as an after thought. A maxwell coffee can with sand will help ya with the strip setup. When you get it all the way you want it, tie the bundle and shake the sand back into the can. A sawn off wine bottle will work too. Or a plastic jug…
ss
just wondering. why all he work to make round cane? when you lay them all up to fuse they go to geometric shapes any way.
I do mine ala David Ruth. Cut a zillion strips. +/-20cm long. Bundle them in the pattern you wish with all the colors and patterns you may contrive. Tie them with copper wire once, in the middle once, or twice-once at the upper part once at the lower part. Just a single strand will do for each tie. (1.5mm cu wire, w/out the insulation) Stand the critters up in your kiln, preheat to bout 500ºC and hold. When the glory hole is fired up (an old beer keg lined with ceramic fiber works great…cut a hole in the lower end – not the bottom – and use that for the entry for the torch) touch the upper end of the bundle with a punty/marvered glass and you have a captive bundle. Heat it up in the glory hole till it starts to get soft. Marver it with something handy to press the air out and the glass strips together… As you heat it again, it will begin to stick together enough for you to cut and remove the cu wire, and you have the beginning of a big murrini. Work it into shape on the marver till you have a solid mass. Don’t keep turning it the same direction all the time or it will spiral. When it is homogeneous, pull it out to the diameter you want. It needn’t be round, but it may be. Imagine. When its pulled to the length you want, pop it back in the kiln and take another one. It’s fun, and you don’t need much more than a big torch, like they use on the asphalt crew, and your homemade glory hole, and your favorite refreshment. ;O)
glad to see up and around
Hey, Jim. Yup, I’ve been experimenting with stainless steel pipe lined with fiber paper and fired standing on end. Makes a nice round cane, but my shrinkage is more than 25%–closer to 50-60%. And in a conventional fusing kiln where the height is maybe 13 inches, you don’t get a lot of cane out of one pipe.
I’d think that the ceramic pipe does pretty much the same thing. Carol Carson said that they were playing with this up at Pilchuck and the pipe isn’t actually necessary–it can be done with wire, dams and fiber paper.
I’m trying that next, actually–the next installment will be talking about ways to fire vertically in a short kiln.
Also you can make some pretty good ones using a round ceramic “pipe”
I don’t know what else to call it.
kiln wash the inside and then put a piece of thinfire around the inside, covering all of the “pipe”.
Fill this with rods,strips and stringer.stand on end on a piece of fiberpaper and fire. Try and get the ceramic “pipe” as long as you can, as the assembly will shrink down to about 3/4 of the unfired length.
I think that you can get the ceramic at either Georgies or Seattle pottery.
with a little practice you can make some pretty good ones.
I lost my camera or I would post some pics.
Jim
Hey, Kristien!
Thanks for the good wishes. Frankly, if I’m going to make traditional-style murrini the torch or hotshop is still the fastest way to do it, and it also gives the most control. I’d agree about the murrini size on a torch, unless you’ve got one of those honkin-great multi-torch glass lathes.
What I’m finding, though, is that kiln-made murrini have their own strengths, particularly when it’s more about repeatable shapes than interior color patterns. You can certainly do more with size–some of the ones in this post are a centimeter or more in diameter. What I’m really after are murrini in the 5-6 INCH range, and that takes us into casting.
On the choppers–I have two. The disk nippers shown in the pic have an opening of slightly more than an inch. They’re the fastest and easiest to use with smaller cane and they seem to be the most accurate for larger diameters.
I also have a pair of tile nippers that open to a bit more than two inches. I use those for the fattest cane I can still cut. They’re rather like pliers with curved-in, sharpened tips. Mine are fairly cheap and not all that accurate but right now they’re the only thing I have for fat kilncane.
I lust after a cane chopper for my studio, but the cheapest I’ve found so far is a US$375 guillotine cutter, and that’s a bit pricey for the occasional murrini needs. Are these the kinds of things you’re talking about?
http://www.redhotmetal.net/glassblowing-cane-cutter/
http://hobbyglass.com/Murrini-Chopper-P458592.aspx
http://www.hubglass.com/wemswel.html
http://www.jplampwork.com/a3marco.html
I’ve used a simple pipe cutter from the hardware store and it works surprisingly well on hotworked cane, although it’s a bit slow. Kilnformed cane is so far too irregular in shape and texture for it to work consistently, and I’m looking for thin slices (3-9mm), which is hard to do.
–cynthia
Murrini! My favorite…if only they were candy I’d munch them all at once! I love working with murrini, both in jewelry and kilnwork (even though I’m still discovering the latter) I didn’t realize there all these kiln methods, so thank you for showing me some new perspectives. The only way I know is lampworking (like this one: http://kristienberghs.blogspot.com/2008/04/cat-eye-murrini.html ) which makes it easier to get them nice and round, but as a result they are on the small side (2-7mm).
I love your chopper! 😀 May I ask where you found such a big one? I have this mosaic chopper that doesn’t open further than 5mm, so that rather limits my options. And yes, those little buggers fly everywhere! I cut mine in a bucket and that keeps them (mostly!) were I want.
An alternative to cutting bigger canes is using a rod or tube cutter that makes a clean score all around the cane, and snap it off by hand if you’re strong enough, or with (coated) pliers, but it’s not as easy to cut thin slices…
I read you were ill, hope you’re feeling a bit better already…get well soon, Cynthia!