Rod Nubbies

Howdy!

There are a couple of things you can do: You can melt them together end to end to make a longer rod out of them. After I do that, I like to anneal them. Makes the joints less shocky when you use them.

You can also get a hand chuck and use it as a holder for smallish pieces. I like this one:

You can use the short pieces as color stripes when you're making canes. I tend to use about 1" pieces when I'm pulling striped cane (which I use for flowers and such). The nubbies come in handy for that.

You can also crunch it up to use as frit :-)

Have fun!

I don't have any pics of my own technique, but here's a link to give you a visual for what I'm about to say:

pull a similar stringer to the one in the tutorial at that link, I wouldtake a yellow rod and fatten it up by gathering and marvering. Then I wouldlay short bits of black (about 1") lengthwise on the fattened yellow rod. Inthe link above, Bill "painted" on the black. I haven't explained it very well, I'm sure. But it's late. LOL!

Thanks! That helped a bunch and I'm going to give it a try. I need to do something with all the black ends I have now.

Don't forget that your black is, in reality, dark purple. You can use that to your advantage, but it can make for a nasty surprise if you're expecting black lines in your pulled stringer :-)

You can get a pair of hemostats or just use pliers to use the last of a rod; you can also punty them onto a clear rod and use them up that way, or, if you have more of that color, you might punty them on to a same-color rod.