Groovy Masher

Not sure what this masher is called, but in the spirit of the Groovy Marver (you know - the one with the ridges that you roll your bead on) - Groovy Masher pretty much tells you what it is.

It's a masher with grooves.

It's fairly narrow, the mashing surface being 19 x 35 mm, that'd be 0.75 x 1.4 inches, for the metric impaired. But not everyone makes beads that are the size of school buses, so I think it would be fine for most people.



It strikes me as something of a one-trick pony, however. I mean, and I love tools, don't get me wrong - it's not like the single purpose tool doesn't have a place in my heart, but really - how many beads with ridges do you want?



Nice sharp lines - I have to admit - the example above is after firepolishing. If you don't have an obsessive need to firepolish, you will have sharper ridges than this.

Ok, there is something else you can do with it. There are these.



Make a gather, get it nice and hot - mash, and pull out with the rod as you mash - away from the masher, so you get a teardrop shape with vertical lines.

Then - with the mashed gather still attached to the rod, but by a thin, pulled out piece of glass - heat the rounded end, and a mandrel. Soften the end and wind around the mandrel, far enough to connect back onto itself.

Separate from the rod and kiln it.

Ok - so it's a two-trick pony.

And it occurs to me that you might get something interesting by mashing, and encasing the ridges, a la the whole Micheal Barley baleen look - which, while done with a blade, one ridge at a time, and much deeper than this will go, you might come up with an interesting look anyway.

Or - you could mash a paddle, and stripe inside the ridges with stringer (much like using an optic mold), and pull ribbon cane for leaves.

Ok - it obviously has multiple uses. I stand corrected.

Don't you hate it when you lose an argument to yourself? ;-)