Kiss my Glass Pt. 2

I had my second glass blowing class on Saturday the 1st. This time I actually got to blow glass. But first, my glass snowman from the first class, completely annealed, in all its glory.

This class was all about learning to make starter bubbles in the glass and to expand and work a piece of blown glass.

You get a gather of glass out of the furnace onto the blowpipe, "marver" it by rolling it on a cold stainless steel table, which shapes it.

Then blow into the end of the pipe, and once you have built enough pressure, you cap the end with your thumb. Then you watch the glass gather as the starter bubble expands the glass.

Once you get it to the desired size, you can take it to the bench to begin working it, or you can gather more glass on top, allowing you to make a larger piece. It takes a lot of practice to be able to blow your own glass, so to start, when working the bench, someone else sits at the end of your blowpipe and blows for you when needed. Whenever the glass gets too cool, you need to put it in the glory hole (that's really what it's called) to heat it back up.

The glory hole on the left, studio pit bull in the middle, and the blowpipe heater on the right.

We started by making a one gather bubble, blowing them as large as we could and then tapping them off the pipe. You make the connection between the glass item and the pipe very thin, then, when you hit the pipe with your metal tool, the glass item just pops off.

A fellow student catches it, wearing heavy gloves and a face mask, and carries it to the annealing kiln.

These first bubbles have a small whole in the top.

Next, we made a bubble using two gathers of glass. When making my first bubble, I got nervous at the furnace (Man its hot in there! - 2000 degrees to be exact) and didn't gather much glass, so my bubble was small. For my second attempt, I over compensated a got a ton of glass. The teacher warned that if we blew it out all the way, it would be huge, and I said "Well then, let's do it." Towards the last reheating in the glory hole, he had to open the doors because the piece got too large to fit through the hole.

This time, when we were ready to break off the piece from the pipe, we did so over a pot that would hold it upright.

The pot held the bubble upright so that a loop of glass could be added to cover the hole and make a hook to hang it as an ornament.

Here's a video of Tim, the teacher, and John, my fellow student, adding the loop to John's ornament.

And as promised, here are a few shots of the glass studio.

I am looking forward to class on Sunday. I missed class this past weekend, so I am going in early to make up what I missed, and then the rest of the class will show up and we will have our fourth and final class.