Fuming

Fuming

By: The Glass Otaku

Perhaps one of the best serendipitous discoveries in the world of glassblowing has been the development of fuming. It all started when Bob Snodgrass accidentally vaporized a piece of silver and its fumes landed on the piece he was working on. Ironically, he was first disappointed with his mistake, thinking he'd botched an otherwise clean tube. It soon became clear that he could manipulate these colors with temperature and he'd invented a new way to color glass pieces.

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Bob working in his studio
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So what the hell is fuming and how does it work? You can find a large variety of different fumed pieces here at GrassCity, and it's surprising how many different colors and styles can be achieved with this method.

A Classic Bob Snodgrass Pipe

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The main materials used for fuming are silver, gold, and the occasional metal alloy. When these metals heat up, they vaporize, leaving a stream of colored airborne metal ions in the torch's long flame. A piece of glass is then put into the vapor stream and metal ions bind with it. The fume's color will be lighter or darker depending the temperature of the flame used to vaporize the metals. The fumed part of the glass is then “encased” or covered with a layer of glass to make sure it won't rub off over time.

Glass by Saito Daisuke

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The concept of fuming can be manipulated to orchestrate some incredibly beautiful colored glass, and it can be taken down to a science to get its desired colors. Some artists take fuming to the maximum, spraying metal fumes all over a tube while others keep it minimal to show its more subtle effects. Though a torch can blow a thin and fine flame, working with flying vaporized metal isn't necessarily conducive to precision. This gives a different sort of appreciation for finer fume work.

Glass by Royal

Now let's clear the air on fuming and how it relates to “color changing glass”. The only way to actually change the color of fumed glass is to heat the metal to a different temperature, which never really happens past the point of manufacture. So a color changing pipe really only appears to change color, because resin buildup gives the piece a new non-clear background. That contrast makes the colors appear in an almost entirely different way, making it appear as though it changed colors.
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Although fuming has been a time-honored technique for some time now artists from around the world have put their own spin on it, in turn creating some very inspiring work. If you're looking to check out some awesome fume work don't hesitate to check out these artists:

Bob Snodgrass
Hugh Salkind
Jolex
Saito Daisuke
Atsushi Tanaka
James Deaschbach
Mike Gong
MAKA B
Royal
Stoke Glass
Sasha Hess
Gateson Recko
Nathan Miers

Stay tuned for more GrassCity EXCLUSIVE CONTENT from The Glass Otaku, and be sure to get your daily boro-fix at Igniteme.co