Amethyst Steam Bowl (approximately 7″)
In order to make bowls for a recent project, I needed to make some custom tools. Both the bowls and tools are based on a technique learned from Mark Matthews in his “Graphic and Color Systems in Glass” class. The bowls are made from several gathers of glass on a punty. Color is applied to the end and pressed into the gather with a stainless steel poker. After the color is applied, the gather is opened with a steam stick inserted into the channel where the color was pressed in. After steaming, the bowls are still bulbous. The are expanded into the final form by the combination of centrifugal force of spinning the punty in the reheating furnace and working them with jacks at the bench.
Color Application and “poking”
The bottom sketch shows the color applied to the gather. The upper sketch shows the color poked in to the gather.
The Tools
Initial Pokers
The pokers were initially created with very sharp points. This caused several issues more of point in the center of the finished piece and more of a tendency to want to get stuck in the glass. Various sizes were tried. The largest proved most useful for this project.
Stainless Poker and detail
Mark’s poker is a bit more elegant in that is turned on a lathe and has shaped handle. However, mine is fully functional for my purposes. The pokers were created by grinding and sanding the taper on the end. The stainless steel when more smoothly formed, cool and used fairly quickly, does not stick to the glass.
Steam Stick
The steam stick, like shaping blocks, is made of water-soaked cherry wood. The tip was created by sanding material away. When pressed into hot glass, the water flashes to steam and causes the void to expand.
Dave's Blog 