Glass Slugs

I started making the glass slugs in 1997.  The 6-inch long slugs are not an unrealistic size for this region of the West Coast.  These slugs became instantly popular as a novelty gift item for slug-hating gardeners, as well as a nice piece of recycled glass art for visitors to the rainforest region.

Following is a description of the slug casting process.
The making of these slugs requires the melting of a small amount of yellow colored glass in the furnace tank full of green transparent glass, and the careful removal of the color and placement in the mold.  The result is a green slug with a yellow head and yellow "banana" markings.  The eyes are then applied after removal from the mold. 

The yellow patch of molten glass is gathered up carefully with a small ladle.  The portion of the glass with the yellow patch is carefully poured into the head region of the slug mold first, then trailed along to fill the rest of the mold. 

The glass fresh out of the mold 

bending the head down with torch

pulling out the eyes on the bent slug.

The finished slug is ready to be loaded into the annealer.

Overlapping pouring waves determine pattern.

Thanks to Tom Hobley for all the photos of the hot working process.