Some more pictures of the Italian Jim's Expansion - A New Technique

Here's the new technique. We optic molded the piece, then body wraped it around the ridges of the freshly optic molded piece, then let the threads cool a bit where they weren't touching the glass (Have I lost you yet?) then stuck it in the glory hole, this shattered most of the glass threads that weren't touching the ridges - then blew it out.
















The glass ceiling is right over the waiting area where you sit and wait on to-go orders.

One of our 3 light fixtures over the front counter. Opal Nile Green body to match the green wall with diablo red body wrap to match the red wall behind the front counter and "curry" to match the main wall color in the dining room. All light fixtures in the new dining room incorporate those same 3 colors.

Some Pictures of Italian Jim's Pizzeria's new space!

Well, here's some pictures of the new space. I have some more to take of another area. To be candid, we out-did ourselves. My son Micah and I did most of the main construction. Shane Mutz(one of Micah's friends, stained the Harlequin pattern on the floor. He did a great job. People just love the floor! Super duper first class!

INTERRUPTION!
(Okay - I just posted this and looked better at the photo and realized I didn't get the floor in the photo. I'll get it later and post it. The floor is extraordinary! )

A friend of ours for 15 or so years, Mike, "helped" me a little bit on the trim work and cabinets. He is such a good helper. Jeff did the electrical work and did a great job. My mom sowed the fabric for the canopies. Micah and I built the walls, did some sheetrock work, taped, bedded, textured, painted, (My daughter Krista helped paint.) My wife and I picked out the paintings. My wife picked out the colors scheme. My wife told me to get it done. My wife told. . . you get the picture. Kim, my oldest daughter, kept the staff lined out and cleaned up a number of time after the messy Marvins (Me & Micah) Micah and I designed and built the glass ceiling ( the part that I don't have pictures of yet). My son and I also blew all the glass fixtures and fiore on the wall and ceiling. I have never seen a pizza place as nice or beautiful. It is gorgeous! It has exceeded my expectations. The pictures do not do it justice!

"THE BEST OF OKLAHOMA"
"The Best of Oklahoma" is coming out this Friday, Aug. 4th and shooting a small series of shots on Italian Jim's Pizzeria being the "Best in Oklahoma". We are excited! If you can come out and be there when they film you can be on TV at the best pizza place in Oklahoma! Shooting is supposed to be between 7 and 8 pm Friday night.

The first picture is before much work was done. The space was formerly a dance studio. Notice the corner on the right side of the picture.


Here is the same space with the photograph taken from approx. the same position. Notice how we added an angle wall to put the "Glass Fiore Wall" - "Fiore" is Italian for Flower. We still have to blow about 5 or 6 more platters to finish it out on the bottom. We have the "white" area behind the platters illuminated brightly so that they "glow" from behind and also have some bright track lighting shining on them from the front.

"CLICK" on the picture and enlarge it and look at it. It's still better in person!

New Work - Congrats to Courtney (Winner Pharm. Rep)

Micah and I have started another series. We are planning on doing them in sets of 3-5 each different set being a different set of colors.

Here they are - what do you think?

Congratulations to Drug Rep, Courtney. She claimed the body wrapped bud vase. She chose pink with a light brown body and lip wrap. Sorry, no photo. Forgot to take photo before I gave it to her.

Long Time . . . - "Gnat" welcome

"It's been such a long time. . ." Sounds like a song from "Boston" doesn't it? But what I mean is that it's been a long time since I've had time to post. We've been really busy getting the new space @ Italian Jim's Pizzeria open. We opened this last Sunday. It is SHARPPPPPP! REALLY SHARP! We still have about 75 to 100 pieces to blow to be complete, but it looks absolutely, double, triple unique and gorgeous!

I will be taking and posting some pictures in the near future. I've got some commission pieces to catch up on and a little bit of rest to take.

We have been blowing glass in this heat trying to get everything done for the restaurant. The other day it was 117 inside the studio while we were blowing - that temp was not in front of the furnace or glory hole - it was hotter there.

Well, I need to go and was just wanting to let everybody know that I was still alive and going.

Gnat, would love for you to come over this way. We will feed you some great pizza and make you feel welcome.

See ya,
CM

(New Drug Rep offer at bottom of page) - The Making of a Body Wraped Platter

Here are some pictures that my wife Linda took while Micah and I made a body wrapped platter with a lip wrap. Some of the pictures were only so-so because it was at night and the lighting was bad and the camera didn't want to focus because there wasn't enough light. In spite of that Linda did a great job and some of the pictures were really good anyway.

The first photo is the finished product.


I tried to upload some pictures of the most fantastic pizzas in the world for Gnat but for some reason they wouldn't upload. I think they might be too big. I will try to get some sometime for you or maybe I might email you some.


Gather number 1.

I just blew the starter bubble and am letting it cool a little bit after I blocked it.



























Gather number 2.

Blocking the glass to a good shape after gather #2.



Gather number 3.



Micah has just picked up a color bit out of the annealer and is preparing to heat and marver it to the size and shape we need for the "body wrap".

You can see I have the blowpipe with the piece on the "threader wheel" and Micah eases the bit up to and touches the piece. He then expertly pulls back until the thread is the proper thickness and I start turning the piece. The thread of glass then encircles the piece round and round and round… all the way to the end.







We finish the threading process and cut off the thread. Micah will take what's left of the thread on the punty and reheat and reshape and keep in the warmer for another piece while I stay busy doing what comes next.

I am now getting a really good heat in the piece so I can get a really deep optic mold imprint.





Into the optic mold and blow!






Reheat! You can see the deep optic molded ridges in the piece!

I am marving the piece and getting ready to cut the jack line in the piece with the jacks.

As you can tell I have blown out the piece some and getting ready to "drop a foot". (I don't have a picture of us dong the foot.)

We have just attached the punty to foot on the piece and are starting the transfer process.

I am now "chilling" the "jack line" with a few drops of water from the file and geting ready to break the glass at the jack line and complete the transfer from the blowpipe to the punty.

I'm keeping the piece hot while Micah is heating up the chunk of color (the bit) that we are going to apply for the lip wrap.

I'm trimming the lip of the piece, getting it nice and smooth and even for the lip wrap.

Micah has heated up the "bit" of color and has presented it to me with the correct shape and heat for me to apply as the "lip wrap" which I am doing now.

I am using the "puffer" to round out the mouth end of the piece before I open it up all the way. Here I am using the parchoffi sticks to open the mouth.

I now have the mouth opened up as far as I want to before I spin it out and this is the final reheat before I spin out the platter

Here I am "spinning out" the platter and then on the "knock-off" table and getting ready to put in the annealler.

Thirty-six minutes from start to finish. Bam!

It took me longer to upload the pictures and write out the steps than it did to make the piece. I'm tired now.

It was good to talk to Andy today in Columbus Ohio. Wish you and Brent the best while you guys are there! Look forward to buying you lunch or dinner when you get back.

Are any pharmaceutical reps reading this? If so, the first one to call me on my cell and mention this, I will blow you a bud vase. Hurry, offer applies to the first one only! tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…

Answer to Gnat

Sorry it took me so long to follow up on Scott's question. We (my family) own and operate Italian JIm's Pizzeria. We just had our 10 year anniversary on March 6th, 2006. Our pizza is great. I will hopefully be posting some photos - before & after - of our new space. Maybe just the "after" photos.

I hope to post some new photos of what we did last night before the weekend is over.

CM

Bowl with copper in the glass

Here is a really neat bowl/platter. It is a piece that I blew for a lady named Britton. She wanted a light blue with a "curry" lip wrap and copper foil up around the edge of the bowl. I was pleased with this one on a couple of different levels. I love the blue and shape and size of the bowl was what I wanted to make. The lip wrap came off well. Micah did a great job with the color bit! We took about 8 sheets of copper foil and folded them and folded them and folded them until they were only about 1/2" wide and put them in a line about 2 lengths long. We then rolled them onto the piece from the marver and heated it in via the glory hole, then we gathered a thin gather over the top to seal it. The copper on the inside of the bowl stayed "copper" colored but the copper that was exposed to the glory hole turned red! If you look close at the pictures you can even see how thick the copper was in spots. I have some pictures posted so you can see. Britton really liked it and we did too.
It was nice to meet Era the other day and look forward to working with her as well.

We are still really busy with the Italian Jim's Pizzeria remodel. We are on pace to break record sales 3 months in a row by a substantial amount each month! We haven't had time to blow much glass or post to the web site, but when things get caught up…

I may take Gnat's que and start making my artifacts other worldly.

See ya,
CM