Learning To Blow Glass

Humans have been blowing glass since the first century A.D.

, although people learned to create glass over a thousand years earlier. The Romans became quite adept at blowing glass into sophisticated forms, as is evidenced by the remains of glassblowing factories throughout what is now Italy and other parts of the old Roman Empire.

The gear needed for blowing glass are a blow pipe, a hollow tube on which a blob of molten glass can be collected; a furnace; and various other tools, such as jacks, wooden blocks, a marver, paddles, and layers or wet newspaper, which are used to shape the blown glass into whatever form you desire. You also need an annealer to slowly cool the glass after it has been shaped. If you are molding glass, you will also need the necessary molds.

Basically, blowing glass goes like this: dip the blow pipe into molten glass to collect a blob sufficient for your project. Roll the hot blob on a steel table, called a marver, to slightly cool the glass and shape it into a ball. As the glass cools, it can be re-heated in the furnace through an opening called a glory hole. By alternately heating the glass, blowing air through the blow pipe, slightly cooling the surface with layers of wet newspaper, and then working it into your desired shape with the wooden blocks and jacks, you can form a tumbler, a vase, or even delicate birds and other advanced figures. If you're new to glass blowing, you'll mostly make paper weights until mastering the movements and learning through experience. Being able the keep the glass blob centered on the blow pipe, maneuvering the pipe and shaping tools, and knowing how much to re-heat the glass all take a studied familiarity with the different elements of glassblowing. It's kind of like driving a car that way, only it takes a lot longer.

Molding glass is a similar process to blowing glass, except that the final shape of the glass is determined by a mold, which can either be open and flat or three dimensional, as for molding cups and vases for mass production. The glass is blown just enough to expand and fill the mold.

From elegant goblets to delicate marbles and beads, the process of fashioning a mixture of silicates, soda, and lime is fascinating to watch. All of us use glass objects every day for practical or purely artistic purposes.

by: Art Gib

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