It has started

Today I officially went into the studio and began working. Today's task was to get the shelving set and begin taking a look at the glass I have purchased over the past 10 years. Wow is all I can say! I found around 200+ pounds of various glass. Add this to the glass tubing that I got from Baylor earlier in the month and I have quite a bit of glass.

What am I going to use the glass for? That's a great question. I need to make a bunch of beads, marbles and begin to work on my murrinis. For beads, I am looking at continuing to make some necklaces and some bracelets. I just need to get better at making marbles, so I plan to work on them. The murrinis should be pretty special. I don't want to discuss these too much because if they turn out, they'll be pretty cool.

Once I get all the glass sorted out, it will be time to work on ventilation. I plan on copying a system that Wayne robbins from Santa Cruz set-up. He discussed with me about using a fan from a hot tub room. I'm not too worried about a hood yet. If it becomes an issue, I'll need to make one.

Step 1 - Done!

Onwards and upwards to glass studio #4. (Ugh, I'm getting sick of putting time and money into a studio and then losing it.)

The time is here!

With finals about over and a huge amount of work to do is over, it's now time to cast my imaginations to the studio. What is it? It's one of my garages that has been converted to a room. Some may say that's not right, but to me, it's perfect. The previous owners built it connected to the central heating and cooling. It's got a ceiling fan for basic circulation. The one thing it doesn't have is ventilation venting gases out.

One thing I need to do is get a fan powerful enough to suck the bad air out of the studio and have a clean air source. Clean air can come either from the house or the garage as I'm planning on venting out to the opposite side of the house.

The other thing is deal with the walls. There are a few things wrong with them. The first is that there is some termite damage that has been dealt with, but the previous owners/renters just left the wall and the paint is coming off. A quick tear down and putting up new drywall should do the job. The second is the studio door. From the house, there's a 16-inch slot in the wall that if you turn the right way and shimmy yourself in, you can be in the studio. Once both of those things are done, it should get a new coat of paint. Following are the colors of the studios I've had in the past:
Studio 1: Gutted a building, new drywall and walls painted a medium gray.
Studio 2: Took over a small out-building and the walls were exposed 2X4s.
Studio 3: Corner of my garage and walls were unpainted drywall
Studio 4: Current room

Pre New Years Resolution

My studio is still in a state of disrepair. It's not in a place where I can make glass well.

This year, the Kodiak Glass studio will be up and running by December 31st.

Wow, time passes by quickly

These last three months blew by in a blink. I realized today that a post to this blog was late, I didn't relaize how late.

Everything is going great and the glass is coming along slowly. I have done a few private demos for school kids and that was fun.

I just need to get out into the shop and begin creating new pieces of artwork.

I'm finally back into production

Everything finally came in and central Texas has a brief respite from the cold. That means one thing. It's time for production.

I'll be making a few more necklaces today.

I've got a lot of tools

I finally got around to unpacking the studio and getting it to a workable state. What surprised me was how many tools I found.

Mandrels: Found in almost all sizes and there's plenty more to be found
Tweezers: How many does one man need?
Pokey Things: I found more dental tools and other similar sized tools.
Everything Else: Where did it come from?

After I piled things into piles, I found a mandrel with old release. Just to make sure everything was working, I created a simple bead.

Woot!

Time to get everything up and running

I finally went and purchased bead release from ArrowSprings. It has been something that has been gnawing at the back of my mind for awhile.

I'll spend some of this weekend getting the basic set-up done and checking all the equipment out.

Some things I've purchased and never had installed:
A new kiln (woo hoo) - A larger desktop kiln means more beads can be made safely
There are other tools and such that need to be utilized.

All-in-all, I should have fun.

Next thing I need to purchase, a new TV with a DVD player. This will allow me to do watch whatever I want when making glass stuff. This will probably be purchased in February.

Well.......

If you didn't notice, I got a bit busy. My studio is still in shambles.

Luckily, I have some stuff I need to get out by the middle of the month.

I'll have something up and running by the end of the week.