How to pull consistent stringers

These two informational slide shows will walk you through how to pull consistent strings for your next project. Tap the slide to view the next photo and instructional text.

Attach a clear punty rod to the end of your choice of color.

By attaching the punty to the color you will have greater control over the stability of your color while heating and pulling.

Note: tweezers are not as reliable for pulling consistent rods because they can slip off the end of your glass.

Heat the glass in segments the width of your flame.

Deciding the diameter and length of your stringers will determine the amount of segments you will heat for your pull.

I personally heat three 3/4 inch sections for my average pull.

Remember to test each color you use by heating and pulling a sample size of glass to understand the colors fluidity before committing a large portion of glass to a single pull.

Once you have heated each section you will go back to the beginning, and reheat each section again allowing the heat to soak to the core.

This allows the glass to pull evenly without clotting

Remember that transparent and semitransparent colors will heat more quickly, and retain heat at a higher temperatures longer than opaque and cadmium based colors. Because the boiling point for opaque and cadmium based colors is lower you must soak them in cooler flames for a longer duration of time to avoid burning the glass and scaring the surface.

When your sections have been evenly heated take the glass out of the flame, and let it set for a moment before pulling

By giving the glass a moment to disperse any concentrated heat from one portion of the glass to another you allow for an overall consistent heat base. Giving yourself the ability to pull consistently even stringers each time.

When you begin pulling let one hand drop and the other rise. This allows the glass to flow in a direction instead of pooling in the center, or at the shoulders.

Pull slowly at first.

The yellow hue is a visual cue that the glass is still in a very fluid state, and can be pulled to thin if you do not take into account the speed at which your hands separate. You will learn each colors consistency as you work with them more. This skill is mostly practice/patience based. 

As the glass descends into the orange visual spectrum you can now begin to pull slightly harder until you see the thickness of your desired stringer at the center of the pull.

Once the stringer descends into the red visual spectrum it is too cool to continue moving.

This means the diameter has been set, and as long as you keep a consistent speed while pulling you will end up with an even stringer.

This is the perfect time to give that little extra pull to extract as much glass out of the shoulders as possible before they fully set.

When the shoulders of the pull enter the red visual spectrum stop pulling.

If you continue to pull you might end up losing your stringer to tension. You could rotate slightly, or possibly bend your hand in a normally insignificant mannor, but by pulling hard enough, it puts unsustainable pressure on the stringer, and it will break.

Determine what portion of the stringer is most constant, and remove the excess.

Being very picky about this measurement is going to determine the quality of you project. Don't go threw all of this trouble, and pick inconsistent pieces.  

Remove the stringer from the rod.

Any left over solders from your pulls can be pulled into micro stringers for welds, to fill in cracks, and fill divots. You can pull these micro stringers with tweezers quickly and easily. 

Remember to round off the ends of your stringer to be consistent with the diameter of the rod.

By removing lumps at the end you can use them on a flat surface, and they will not shift positions as they settle after heating. And that's it! Have fun, and be patient while you practice. It's an amazing skill to have in your tool belt.

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