In November last year I went to the Eslite Songyan [1] to try out the glass blowing class at the Kun’s Crystal [2] shop and it was heckuva lot of fun! On the same floor as Kun’s are a number of do it yourself booths and vendors, from clayware to tea appreciation to leather work.
Kun’s Crystal provides a guided experience for beginner’s in glass blowing. Overall I really enjoyed the experience, and I would be interested to go back there for more in depth handling. To start, I chose a particular shape and pattern that I wanted to create with glass (Si oxide).
The teacher’s in shop retrieved molten glass from the red orange hot furnace for me to begin molding into shape. The furnaces are set to over 800 degrees Celsius (I think it was 1000 degrees or so), and the glass cools quickly to about 600 degrees during which work can begin.
My teacher led me to the prepared colored salts to which I dabbed onto glass in approximately three quarters of it’s length. This leaves a pristine neck (1/4 in length or so) where the glass holds onto the steel rod. Then moving swiftly yet firmly to a smaller furnace, the rod is inserted and turned to melt the glass containing colored salts, taking care to keep the glass parallel to the rod. After ensuring uniform heating, we moved to the bench where I blew into the rod (opposite end from the hot glass, mind you!) to create a small round air pocket.
This air pocket is molded in a wooden ladle-like bowl. During this process the glass cools because the ladle is first dipped in tepid water, so the glass needs to be re-heated in the furnace, after which some more blowing is done to enlarge the air pocket.
This process is repeated a few times until the desired air pocket size is achieved. Finally, the glass piece is molded into the shape desired, in this case, a round ball for Christmas decorations!
References
- https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=489ba680-1fd7-4fc0-aa5c-fc29f1a1cf80&cp=25.045353~121.557313&lvl=16&imgid=b376f98a-e376-4ecf-be88-6752fbf641ed&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027
- http://www.kun.com.tw/experience.php