Learn to make a ribbon cane with 2 colors

I love ribbons in glass!!  I love the inside out technique that makes that ribbon just POP like one of those snakes from Beetle Juice.  This was one of the first things I had to learn more than 12 years ago.  So how do you make these things??

The first thing you will need is some 10 or larger clear rods of glass.  One will be your handle you make this on, the other is the clear you will use to sandwich the color.  Take one rod of glass and make sure that it is warm and will take the color.  If you put the color on a cool piece of glass, you have a potential it will crack the clear.  So make sure you preheat the clear.  Once it is warm you will take a color and lay it down.  I prefer to start on the away part of the rod.  I do this so that the next like of color will be going down in the flame.  This technique will help prevent any air getting trapped between the two colors.  Lay the one color down.  You can go about 2 inches.  Then get your next color and pre heat it so that when you start to lay it down it goes faster.  Once preheated lay it down next to the first color.  If you are doing 3 or more colors you can do this same way.  But if you do you will want to use a smaller diameter rod of color.  You can pull this down yourself like you would a stringer.  With the color down you will then take your other clear rod of glass and pre heat it up.  Then lay it down on top of the color.  Now you have a sandwich of color !!  Once you do this I like to heat it up, then when it is hot I press the color some so that it centers on my rod of color.   You can see this in the video.  Now just melt it down to like a football shape.  The color is a higher viscosity so this is when you will see the clear kinda like bunch up as you heat it up.  This is ok and actually part of the process.  Keep heating it up.  Once it is all smooth you will then start to twist and pull.  What I can say is feel free to almost over twist it.   If you do not twist it enough it will not look like a good ribbon when you put it in something.  I hope this helps your skill set and gives you better ribbons or you just learned!