Glass Blowing Course - September 2002
Thom and I share a keen interest in art glass and have spent many hours in glass museums and galleries. This summer we decided it would be fun to take a course on the basics of "Hot Glass" or glass blowing. The following are photos I took of Thom doing several projects during our course. I also did projects my self, but someone had to take the pictures. I have tried to put a brief description of what was happening below or beside each photo.
Click Here to see Thom's Finished Glass Pieces
Click Here to see Brian's Finished Glass PiecesClick on the image to view an enlarged version.
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Thom heats a "gather" of molten glass in the "glory hole" |
"Papering" the heated gather of glass with wet newspaper helps to give it the desired shape. |
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| Cooling the glass in between steps. | Beginning to add coloured glass. |
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| More colour... | Twisting colour strands together |
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After gathering more glass over the colours more shaping is needed. |
More shaping before breaking the finished piece off the pole and placing it in a special oven to cool slowly. |
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Thom "marvers" a new gather of glass on a cold flat steel table to shape the next project. |
"Jacking" the gather creates a neck line around the newly formed vessel. Previous to this step I helped Thom by blowing an air bubble through the pole into the gather of glass. |
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Just before the step pictured above I helped Thom again by attaching a "punty" or small gather of glass on a soild pole, onto the bottom of his vessel he then broke off the project at the neck line to create an opening. Above a coloured "lip wrap" is being applied to the opening. |
After the lip wrap has been applied more heating is required to smooth and even out the lip wrap. |
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Cooling the project after smoothing out the lip wrap. Thom decided to do a little more shaping on the marvering table before breaking off the finished piece... |
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| Our "Graduation Present " made by our instructor. | |
Menu System coded by Andy Wooley (c) Milonic Solutions 187015