Stringers...modus operandi?

[Trudi]

If you want to pull a very thick stringer you can use a piece of commercial stringer instead of tweezers, just attach it to the blob and pull.

Top tip!

I do it this way a lot, I find it helps me to get a more even stringer.

Must try that for when I want to pull thick clear stringers!!

[Wishing Wells Glass]

I actually use both methods!  For thinner stringers (the kind that I use most often) I heat the tip, form a blob, wait a sec, pull with tweezers a la Lesley's wonderful diagram.  Holding the rod at an angle so the heat travels upwards makes a BIG difference in my experience!  I also *gasp* burn the end off in the flame instead of nipping it.  I find it easier although it does create a teeny ball on the end of the stringer but that's not a huge deal to me as I am seriously crazy about cleaning tips of rods and stringers (you know, heat the end and pull it off with tweezers or, if stringer, wrap the end around the mandrel so you get a nice, clean, even starting tip).

When I want larger stringers I use the 'heat the rod in the middle' method.  You can get quite thick and quite looooooooong stringers that way.  The punty version I only use for canes.  I normally only use thick stringers for my people beads and really large decoration so I stick mostly to the 'tweezer' method.

It really helps to pull stringers from ALL of your rods to start.  Transparents and opaques have very different feels to them as do different types of glass.  Transparents are generally stiffer and CiM glass is stiffer than Effetre (Moretti) as well.  White is the softest of all so it *may* be a bit more difficult to pull stringer from white in the beginning.

I've only been at this a few months and I know how it feels to be waiting for that 'a ha!' moment.  My advice would be to practice with transparent rods to start with, paying close attention to Lesley's diagram, and then move on to opaque rods.  The 'a ha!' will come

Have fun!! 

Love,
keiara

[SueP]

I only make Silvered Ivory Stringers in this way.
For standard stringers - I take a full rod and warm the middle rotating both ends in the same direction. As the glass melts I kind of push towards the centre and this creates a kind of disk shaped gather. When this is big enough, I take it out of the flame, count to about 5 and then pull on both ends as evenly (and fairly slowly) as possible. I then use pliers to cut the stringer off at each end. Re-join the two ends of the rods and start the process again.
Kaz

Yep I do it this way as well sometimes with 2 shorter rods I use pliers dipped in cold water to "cut" the ends - only other diference is I twist in different directions as soon as the glass starts to soften and wind it in to the middle.  I only use the tweezer method for short stringers used for making swirls as you get that nice little blob to use to turn 

Can't make twisties for toffee so ppp for me there

[Trudi]

Can't make twisties for toffee so ppp for me there

Me nither - I need to PPP that too - although I think some of my problem is that I'm pulling too soon!

[Im a glassy babe]

I've just got the hang of stringers. Yay! Only taken me since April to figure it out.  I was try to pull the stringer with the glass too molten.  Kept trailing off into nothing.  Couple of days ago, it suddenly all came together, and I've pulled stringer after stringer since.  In my case it was the temperature of the rod that was causing the problems.

Happy stringer pulling!!