Who wants to talk torches?

[RobertS]

Wow, thanks for all the info, folks! That's a wide range of use and experience, and it helps a lot.

Debby, you're certainly correct, I'm sure many of the answers would be very different if we were talking hard glass. I'm a softy, of course, and it looks like more of the responses here are from folks working soft glass (although also BIG). Except maybe Robert--Are you working hard glass with your setup, Robert? Is that part of wanting a step up from the Phantom, or do you want to move bigger even for larger soft glass work?

I'm liking what I'm hearing about the Cricket as the center fire of the Scorpion. Pam & Sam (and anyone else who wants to chime in!), can you compare that Cricket flame to a Minor for me?

What I loved about the Lynx on my test drive was how sharp you could get that small flame when you wanted it, rather than having the large area of hot air around the flame like you get with a minor (and like Pam describes with the outer fire of the Scorpion). Does the Cricket/Cricket center fire give you that kind of pin-point flame when you want it? And when you use the Cricket with a larger flame, does it give you a similar performance to a Minor, in terms of how hot/how fast you can work on general beadmaking tasks?

One other question for you, Pam: How is your Scorpion upgraded/sidegraded/downgraded from the regular model? Just curious!

Katherine

I'm ambi-glasserous. I mostly work with 104 and do beads, complex murrini (faces, butterflies, etc) and such with it. I also do much larger sculptural work with boro. The Phantom is great for shifting gears. I also plug in a Smith Little Torch for some detail on sculpture, but the Phanto gives me most of the range in both heat and detail that I need for most things. If I go to bigger paperweights (104 + Schott pucks) I may want to move up to a Mirage.

Robert

[Vince]

Hi Pam,

yes, life up here in the NW is great. We are enjoying a really nice summer although a bit delayed by a wet spring. Thanks for asking. How are things down there in south Florida?

Vince