Assisting in the hot shop

Assisting with glassblowing at Remark Glass was a great experience that I had the luxury of experiencing twice this summer. This summer they finished installing a hot shop in their studio so being one of the first people to try it out was so nice. Because we use recycled bottle glass, for the most part the blowing is done with bottles brought up in a kiln which are then picked up on a collar. A collar is a ring of glass on the end of blow pipe. This creates a seal between the bottle and the pipe so when you blow into the pipe the glass can expand.

The main piece of equipment we use to reheat the glass is called a gloryhole (yeah I know get the laughs out now!). This runs on a mix of propane and air to get up to temperature. We keep this at 2100 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature it isn't exactly comfortable to stand in front of but you get used to it, kind of. While I'm assisting with blowing my main concern is to anticipate what the next step will be and have everything ready for it. Once the glass is too large I need to operate the doors on the gloryhole to allow it to fit. I need to be ready to carefully blow when they need air in the piece. I need to be prepared to light up a torch when we need to spot heat an area of glass before reheating the entire piece. When you spot heat the glass you are allowing the rest of the piece to cool down to a lower temperature while raising the temperature of a particular spot. That way when you go to reheat the whole piece, that spot always stay hotter than the rest.

Some other aspects of assisting includes using a wooden paddle to either flatten the bottom of the glass or to maintain even thickness and a flat plane on the lip of the glass when it is being opened up. Even making sure that the person doing the blowing has water is important! Overall it is a fun experience, but it requires a lot of attention and focus. You can't zone out cause your complete attention is needed to make sure the piece comes out right.