How to bend
Glass Tube
Working with Glass Tubing: Cutting, Polishing + Bending
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when cutting glass tubing the way that
you want to do it is with the edge of
the triangular file and you want to
apply direct pressure straight down and
make one deep gouge
now that gouge is going to be a weak
spot in order to break the glass tubing
hold the gouge that you just made away
from yourself put your thumbs behind it
and put apply light pressure like you're
breaking a pencil once you get is a
fairly clean edge
but that edge is very sharp if you
compare it with this piece you may be
able to see that the piece we just cut
has a sharp edge to it whereas this one
which has been fire polished is more
rounded off so the next step is to fire
polish when you fire polish your the end
of your cut glass tubing you want to
hold it on a 45 degree angle at the
hottest part of the flame which is the
tip of the inner blue cone and you want
to constantly rotate it until as you
take it out and you look at it you see
that the edges are rounded off for that
fire polished end all right when you're
heating for a glass Bend you want to
position the glass right above the tip
of that inner blue cone and constantly
twist it to distribute the heat evenly
the longer you heat the glass will begin
to soften and you will actually see the
glass start to Sag a little bit
when you first start to notice that
sagging heat it a little bit longer and
then if you take it out of the heat and
you can actually let gravity do the bend
for you and then when you're ready to
let it cool just set it down on an
insulating pad and use the back of your
hand above the glass the test to see if
it's still hot and usually it's going to
take a couple of minutes before it's
safe to touch now another type of Bend
is one where you can manually guide the
glass instead of letting gravity alone
do the work so again you start by
heating the glass tubing at the spot
where you want the bend to occur and you
watch for it to start to weaken soften
and sag
and when you see that starting to happen
then you can take the tongs in one hand
and you can guide the bend into the
proper orientation and you can also let
gravity do some of the work as well and
then a few seconds outside of the flame
and the cool air it will harden
sufficiently again set it on the
insulating pad to cool until it's safe
to touch
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