Lumia project

[allthatwhichis]

I've made several torture tubes, all from borosillicate glass - test tubes work well. I've got a fair amount of tools for working with glass, both hot and cold. I'm still playing around with different effects - dimple tubes, twisted tubes (also called "toffee tubes"). Next, I want to try glass rods to see what is possible.

We need to compare notes for our results. I'll bring what I have to SELEM and will post photos soon.

Greg is a King of Lumia glass...

[Jem]

Any chance of someone posting a picture of one of these 'Torture Tubes'?

I'd like to have a go at making one, but it would be helpful to get an idea of the amount of distress needed to make a decent effect. It would also be useful to see the method for mounting it on the motor.

Cheers

[Mindwaave]

I'm currently in the process of building my first lumia rig, and these look seriously cool. I know I'm nowhere near as experienced as most of you, but after seeing what is possible, my artistic side is screaming at me to do this. My first wheel from Greg should be ready sometime soon, but I'd also like to learn more about those torture tubes. Now I just need to find some lasers for cheap...

[Displaser]

"Torture Tube" photos:



Not hard to make, as long as you don't mind working around hot glass. I first read about these in the Laser FX Handbook, published many years back. Variations can include twisted tubes, dimples, etc. I'm still trying to achieve the right effect, but these do have the benefit of more vertical or horizontal movement, where the classic lumia effects have a swirling motion.

Greg

[Vidal Wolf]

Well, my *torture tube* project was a dismal failure!.. And I used to bend neon! I spent a year as an apprentice in a local sign shop in Seattle.. 20 years ago... whattheheck!
Greg, yah selling any of those? =)

[Displaser]

Well, my *torture tube* project was a dismal failure!.. And I used to bend neon! I spent a year as an apprentice in a local sign shop in Seattle.. 20 years ago... whattheheck!
Greg, yah selling any of those? =)

Nate,

Sorry to hear the bad news. I'll be selling these after SELEM, just need to work on my technique a bit more.

Greg

[ShortyInCanada]

That looks pretty cool.
So you have a fairly thick rim on the small bottles and you heat up the body carefully/evenly with a propane torch to soften the glass. Then you apply gentle twists, turns, presses, pinches, and the likes.
How do you let them cool down ? Do you need to keep it from happening too quickly ? Like slap them in a preheated oven at 400 degrees or something like that to ease the cool down process ?
Wher do you find that type of container ? (just me being lazy asking this last one. It's late and I don't want to have to look it up.)
I had some fun once combining different parts from some broken wine glasses (parents brought back from one of those wine tours) using just a propane "plumbers" torch. Taking an intact stem piece and bonding it to another with the top glass intact. Made several crazy glasses that lasted a surprisingly long time. Using wine glass stems could be a good idea as they have a flat base attached to a long drawn out piece of glass that is frequently molded already. Then softening and just small manipulations could turn out many different examples. The transparent flat base could be projected through or into like a fibre optic cable causing the whole piece to throw patterns in every direction...wow. That sounds like I've stumbled on to something. But it will be long time before I can do anything about it. I'm still without any lasers.

[sugeek]

The advice I was given on torture tubes is to use plastic rather than glass, and dimple it at an angle going down. As for the propane torch and glass you can do it for small thinwalled stuff. Protective eyeware for the sodium flare is suggested (http://www.waleapparatus.com/) will have them. But if you just want to try go get a cigar tube, a pair of pliers, a nail and a propane torch. Thicker stuff you would need to anneal, it will crack otherwise because the outside cools faster than the inside (but that may be a cool effect).

[Displaser]

I think you will likely see nice effects from either glass or plastic. I was pleasantly surprised with the results seen with
glass so far - not too complicated & no plans to anneal, as this is more than I feel is necessary. Maybe for glassblowing, but this seems to be working fairly well.

[Vidal Wolf]

I made a vid to show the lumia table working.
added some description of what was going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJqKc70OIyk
I hope it inspires some others to build lumia effects also.