Tony Smith's Blasted Blog!

I can't believe that I haven't posted in months!!!

Since I posted last, I survived the second semester of grad school at Tufts. Woo Hoo!!! Now I'm in the middle of a summer practicum with an awesome team from school.

In January, I took a bodycasting class in NYC with my friend Gina. About a month ago, I worked with a fabulous local model and made four different molds from her body. I was successful in making plasters from each and am now in the process of learning how to make casting molds for my glass work. There are naked plasters all over the studio... not sure how my wife feels about that, but I'm really enjoying learning the various plasters and mold-making materials. Now that I've worked with the plasters that I made, I understand the requirements better and will make four more molds in a couple of weeks. The first molds really came out great, but now the ideas are really flowing. I'll let you know what comes of the ideas.



I'm hoping to get a couple of weeks off to unwind in August... no vacations this year. All of those funds are going into a new septic system hookup and oil to heat the house this winter.

I'll try to give you an update in a couple of weeks

Tony

It's just a few days before Thanksgiving, and the semester is almost over. And that's awesome.

I haven't done much glass in the past three months, but finished three projects in the past week that have been hanging over my head... one more to go and I can start on Christmas presents.

Looking forward to the holidays and taking some time off.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

Well, school starts today. I'm still nervous and apprehensive. I think it's unrealistic to expect that I'll have seen this material before, which makes it all new, which makes me even more nervous.

I guess we'll see what the day brings.

While the data sheets claim that Silicon Carbide (SiC) lasts longer and is more aggressive than Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3), in practice, it's unlikely that you will notice the difference. There was some discussion a few years back about SiC creating a haze in certain types of work where two sandblasted surfaces were fused to each other or a sandblasted surface was capped with transparent glass which trapped microbubbles that caused the haze. I believe this was a unique case where one material worked and the other did not. Others argued that they had successfully used SiC for the same process... so the jury's still out and the debate has been quiet for a long time.

I prefer Silicon Carbide because it doesn't create a static charge during blasting like Aluminum Oxide does. At the least, the static charge can make the abrasive and glass dust stick to your work and the walls of your cabinet (not a big problem). At the worst, it can create static shocks to your body. The static problem is more prevalent in dry environments and can be mitigated by standing on a grounding mat and grounding all of the components of the cabinet.

120 grit is a good, all-around grit size balancing speed of material removal with the smoothness of the finished surface. If you want a smoother finish, use a higher grit number (smaller particle size), if you want more aggressive material removal, use a lower grit number (larger particle size). The smaller particle sizes are more likely to get sucked into your dust collector with glass dust, so it is likely that it will need to be replenished more often.

I've been fighting bubbles for over a year now... it's really taking a toll on me. My glass sucks because of it. It's only the black glass, but I use a lot of it.

Maybe the Genesis kiln in the garage is the answer... I don't know what else it could be...

Pressure pots are incredibly simple devices that can be equally frustrating when things go wrong. They consist of a pressure vessel with a hole in the top to let air in and a hole out the bottom to let abrasive out. There also needs to be a way to pour more abrasive in and different manufacturers have found different ways of varying complexity to do that.

The Harbor Freight pressure pot is very simple and works well. But the old adage: "you get what you pay for" applies here. It is a bare bones device that can use a few more features to make it a real performer. Consider adding a water separator and ball valve at the air inlet. Also an air regulator attached tot he pressure pot with inlet and outlet pressure gauges will give you better pressure control if your compressor is more than a few steps away. The mixing tee at the bottom is a bit funky. It can be replaced with a standard steel pipe tee. Add a plug at the bottom of the tee that can be removed to give you access to the bottom of the pot. This will be necessary if you ignore the above advice and don't add a water separator at the pressure pot. You could add another ball valve in the air line between the top and the bottom of the tank to act as a choke valve, but that can wait until you have problems with the abrasive flow surging.

Harbor freight is notorious for using non-standard nozzles in their blasters. But if you're using a ball valve at the end of the hose to control the flow, you should be able to get a nozzle fitting from glastar, rayzist or photobrasive that uses standard #2 tapered nozzles and adapt it to the valve at the end of the hose.

On the other hand, this pot will sip air and works well at 20 psi with a small nozzle. But then, just about any pressure pot will. I demonstrated a Glastar Pressure Pot at a distributor a couple of years ago and all that was available for a compressor was a 50 year old, 110 volt, 20 gallon compressor. I did demo's all afternoon without a problem.

I hope this helps

Tony

The return to school is only three weeks away. It's been years since I've sat in a classroom on a regular basis... needless to say, I'm nervous and apprehensive. Not sure how to get past the first day.

It's a master's program for engineering management... hopefully, just a review of what I've been doing for the past three years. not sure... nervous... apprehensive... nervous...

It's been so hard to go into the studio recently. Poor results from my last few projects have me questioning my materials and processes. I still have a large Genesis kiln sitting in the garage waiting to be set up... it's been there for almost two years... I guess this problem isn't new. Work has my brain overloaded... perhaps I'm just drained of creative juices, or maybe I'm just making excuses. Even my contract work has been taking longer than usual to get done... it's too much like work.