Workshop - glass

So glass today was pretty amazing! I've been waiting to have a go at this workshop since I missed out 2 months ago.. (2 months?? Has it been that long???)

Anyway, since so much happened, I might as well explain in pictures...

This is the hot section of the glass workshop.

It's pretty hot.

The other section of the workshop was the cold one.

That was pretty freezing cold.

But not intentionally - the heater has broken down.

There are two furnaces filled with molten glass - the one where you first obtain the glass is heated to 1,120 degrees, and the 're-heating' furnace is heated to 1,200 degrees. So pretty hot.

Similarly to the third year shown in the photo above, I had a go and taking some glass out of the furnace and having a bit of a play. First you take a long metal from where they have been heating up by a large flame. With both hands at the end of the rod, you rest it on the entrance to the furnace and lower the tip inside until you reach the glass. You then start turning the rod whilst gently lifting it back out, the left hand moving to the centre of the rod. Now there is a ball of molten glass on the end, but it cools very quickly. Moving the rod to the left hand, there is some time to take the large tweezers in the right hand and have a go at pulling the glass this way and that, making shapes and twizzling it around before it cools.

 We then had a go at fusing float glass, which involves creating a pattern using very fine (powder-like) glass of the same type in between two tiles of glass which are then heated and fused together. In the photo above I have used very fine shards of glass to arrange a pattern, though when these particular shards are heated, they should turn a deep red colour! They'll be heated tonight so I'll go back tomorrow afternoon and see how they've turned out...

 In other news, during the break I saw this incredibly chocolate-y chocolate cake in the coffee shop that strongly reminded me of the cake Miss Trunchbull forced Bruce to eat in 'Matilda'.

 I then had a go at engraving glass which was pretty easy and very fun. A tile of glass is placed in a shallow tray of water and a large pen-like instrument (hehe, I really should learn the names of things) with a rod at the end (made of diamonds!) is turned on to rotate the rod so that when it contacts the glass it cuts away a fine mark to make it appear frosted.

 Above is one of the tiles I made by engraving!

Another method of glass making we tried out was lampwork, where small rods of glass are melted in front of a hot flame, which can then be joined, parted, twisted and shaped...

I managed to make a blob.

But, I think, it is a rather pretty blob.

I also learnt the dangers of transferring glass from hot to cold to hot too quickly - during the lampwork I manged to make a bit of the glass I was melting explode and tiny shards went everywhere...

But hey, at least I didn't burn a huge hole in the front of my top like a third year did whilst we were there...

 And just for fun, here is a photo of what the canal looked like today - the water has flooded onto the pavement and the swans are loving it.