R-315 Cane

[Andrew Boatman]

I am making some Christmas ornaments. I am using Riechenbach 315-C from Olympic. It is a pretty color.
Setup:
I cut the cane in 3 inch pieces, place in even spacing with five pieces in optic mold. I gather on .5 inch perfume pipe from Steinart. Second gather and drop down into optic mold and pick up the pieces. Heat. Push back the tips onto the moile and crimp the ends. Heat and cut off extra ends. Heat. Optic mold for a twist. Heat. Marver with handle end down to get a cone shape and blow the bubble. Heat. Jack the neck. Blow out to size 3 inches more or less. Knock off and a doober.
I ordered enough glass cane for 80. 10 ornaments in a quarter lb. bundle.
The folks upped the order to 110 so I ordered more cane. This batch that came in is different. I am getting some strange blown out spots. It is like it is from two different lots or something. The color is off just a bit but hard to tell. The inner rings seem to be the most telling with different patterns on the cane pieces. Light and dark and thick and thin in different places. The first 80 did not have any trouble. I lost about half of the ones I have made thus far in this batch.

I was just wondering if anyone had any experience such as this.

Thanks,
Andy

[Barb Sanderson]

Hi Andy
Is there any reason you aren't pulling your own cane for this project? It just seems like you would have more control over these types of issues if you did?

Barb

[Andrew Boatman]

We did pull out a bunch of cane. I tried a couple of different colors, encased in clear and strait cane too. It ended up being more inconsistent on thickness and usability. The lampworking cane was strait and clean and until this batch it blew great.
I will try to get some photos this evening.

[Andrew Boatman]

I am attaching two photos. One ornament came out good for me. The other blew out funny in the cane.