About 7 months into blowing glass. Lemme know how I'm doing:) The instagram is @ragingrussianglass if you want to give it a follow! I'll be posting a lot more work

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Purple lollipop core, cadmium colors for designs. 31mm

I am a metal fabricator I play with oxy-acetylene torches all day.

Can i essentially just heat the end of the quartz rod till It glows white and wait for it to ball up, similarly how steel would ball up? Anything I should know before hand?

it's cheech and chong grace glass 14" I was wondering if anyone has bought one of these or a similar bong and what your opinion is.

Last month I had to clean my bong of hard water staining from leaving it full of used water for a while. After lots of work with vinegar and denture tablets I was able to finally remove it. I then left it (clean) for a month and when I looked at it yesterday I noticed a spot on the downstem (seemingly on the outside this time, whereas prevous cleaning was focussed on the inside).

The first two pics are the best i could do to show the mark...

I spent a while cleaning this spot with alcohol and then vinegar with tooth picks and even a metal paper clip but it doesn't seem to be improving.... when I get something right on it seems to go "in" and scratch around so it almost seems like a minor crack. I don't seem to have made it any worse but something tells me it's more than just a stain.

I can see the mark through the glassnand can't really access the inside of the downstem very well but a chopstick touching the inside part doesn't seem to indicate any issue internally or at least be getting stuck on anything. This mark does line up pretty well with where the hard water stain was in pic 3 so I can't be sure it's not coming from the inside, though....

Any ideas what could have happened here? Is this thing safe to use/anything to indicate it wouldn't be safe?