I'm making off-mandrel implosions using solid clear rod and starting with a maria. I've looked at a couple of you tube demos and have made a few, but have some questions.
The centre implode beautifully, but the outer design often gets lost/smudged. So my questions are:
1. How close the the edge of the maria can you place the design- is there a proportion that needs to be clear from design?
2. When heating the maria with the design on, my understanding is to tilt the rod down to encourage the glass to flow-and heat the rim of the maria which sort of bulges out to form a tyre shape which you then gently press to flatten. How do you deal with the belly button that forms in the maria centre?
3. When you have finished imploding, should all the original design be covered by clear? Maybe I am stopping too soon?
The way the maria implodes depends on both the angle of the rod to the vertical and the tilt of the face towards the flame, if you see what I mean. More vertical and the glass will flow faster with gravity, making a longer, thinner implosion and giving more risk of that 'belly button'. But hot glass flows better towards warm glass than it does cool, and I usually try to envisage the implosion as a process of moving the clear glass around the maria from the sides/ top to the front... so you need to keep the front warm to accept that flow of glass, while still heating the 'tyre rim' to get the glass molten enough to move.
Usually, the imploded design would end in a point - or near enough to get the final little bit picked out and pulled together (having first allowed the rest of the implosion to set just a bit). It can help to run a little bit of clear in a ring around this point, which helps with the shape.
There is a video on Youtube of John Kobuki making a flower implosion as part of a class at Corning. It's on their channel somewhere and worth watching.
John Kobuki is a great teacher. His work is just amazing!
When he imoplodes his flowers he has the design almost to the edge of his boro maria. He is imploding the design in many small steps. That helps to coltrol the process. First hold the rod horizontal and heat the shoulder. Than tilt the maria about 45° down and heat the shoulder and warm the base. Watch the maria to bend into a shallow bowl and tap it on the marver to reshape the flat bottom. Think "you..." while heating the edge, "shall move..." tilting the maria down "there!" while softning the bottom slightly. The design is compressed slightly towards the center and you get aditional space at the edge to add more design elements. Repeat the heating, tilting and reshaping untill the design has develloped well. Marvering the base helps to flatten the glass and cools (hardens) the place with the design, to be able to apply heat at the desired places only.
With soft glass the control is not so easy as with boro, because it is softer and moves easier. It asks more patience to slow down the compression of the bottom of the maria. The glass on top of the shoulder has to move around the edge to fill the space where the design is compressed.
Oh! This is just like old times.
I can't help - I'm rubbish at implosion. But I'd love to see pics of how you're getting on, if you don't mind....
Anakins tutorial for implosions is great, have you seen it? Not sure if its still out in internet land...?? I have a copy of it that I am happy to share - don't worry people, it was a FREE tutorial from way back, not a purchased one. If you want to drop me your email in a pm, I will send it to you when I am next on my lappy.
I might well have a couple of others too, just gathered from forum threads etc, so let me know if you want those too. :)
Hi Sam,
This tutorial might be interesting for more artists out there... Anakin is a great teacher. The (real) imploded marble (How to encase white?) (https://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=44767.msg705739#msg705739) was made in his class at glaspunkt.de (http://glaspunkt.de) in Burghausen.
I found it in the ARCHIVE.org
Anakin's Glass Eye Implosion Marble Tutorial (http://web.archive.org/web/20051125034737/http://www.anakinsglasseye.com/tutorial/tutorial-implosion.pdf)
An other one:
The Blooming Marble (By Josh Grant) (http://web.archive.org/web/20060503223646/https://www.theflowmagazine.com/v1i3.pdf)
Plus a Video
Studio Demonstration: John Kobuki (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBmoV2Y33UQ&feature=youtu.be)