Glassblowing

Fascinated by glass? Perhaps you have seen the inside of a glassworks. Seeing glass artists at work up close is a special experience. With their artistry and mastery of technique, they command respect. Producing beautiful Tiffany lamps from straight sheets of glass, but glass blowing using the blowpipe is also a mesmerising process. It takes a glassblower about eight years before he can call himself a master glassblower, until then he gains experience as an assistant to the master glassblower.

The glass-blowing process

Three furnaces are used for glass blowing.The first, the melting furnace, contains the molten glass. This is heated day and night at 1120°. The second furnace is the reheating furnace. This is used for reheating the glass during the production process. The third furnace is the cooling furnace. In this furnace, the blown objects are cooled slowly over several hours or days (depending on the size and thickness of the objects).By letting the pieces cool down in a controlled manner, the glass gets "relaxed". If this is not done, the objects crack.

The tools

The main tools of a glassblower are: Jacks, marver, scissors, tweezers, blowpipes, punties and wooden moulding blocks and boards.

Jacks: Tweezer-shaped instrument with long legs used to 'constrict' and shape the glass.

Blowpipe: A long hollow metal tube. The glass is picked at the end and air is blown into the glass along the other end.

Punty: A closed metal rod. It is used for transferring objects, applying glass and making paperweights or sculptures.

Glassblowing bench: This is the workbench on which the glassblower forms the object. On two parallel rails, the blowpipe or punty is rolled back and forth.

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