The Glassblowing Bible

The Glassblowing BIBLE Discover Everything Under the Sun on Glassblowing — The Easy Way! FROM BOWLS TO BEADS TO PIPES! By Craig Bellinger Welcome to “The Glass Blowing Bible”, a one-of-a kind book of instruction intended to quickly launch you on the rewarding path to glassmaking. It will cover the most asked-for uses of various glassblowing techniques. Our goal is to present the budding glass blowing enthusiast with a step by step basic understanding of glassblowing, lampworking and the basic information to make cups, vases, beads, pipes or anything else your imagination may suggests in this highly creative endeavor. “Glass Blowing Bible” differs from other books on this topic in its manner of presentation. Our aim is to present a journey into the world of glassblowing and its many forms in an easy-to-understand way -- to let that light bulb in your brain go on and in your head with an ‘Aha! So that’s how it’s done!” as fast as possible. In other words, this is meant to be a kind of instant gratification for glass blowing enthusiasts. If you’ve ever searched for information of glassblowing on line, or tried to read any books on glassblowing, you’ve probably seen how overly complicated and confusing they can be and how much of the detail in them is unnecessary to get started. “The Glassblowing Bible” is a clear, concise and simplified explanation of glassblowing that has never before been attempted and will save you from reading hundreds of pages to learn the basics in lampmaking, bead-making and pipe-making. 2 It’s what you need to get started quickly, safely and with success. After that, how far you go in this wonderful pastime – or for some, a business – is up to you. Instruction in any reputable glassblowing studio would be a great way to build on what you learn here. Nothing succeeds like hands-on experience over a long period of time. A bit of artistic talent doesn’t hurt either. 3 BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROPERTIES OF GLASS Did you know that glass does not have a melting point, like other metals and solids? It just continuously softens! Actually, glass is a liquid in its hardened form. Hard as it may be to believe, when you are holding a glass of water in a glass, you are really seeing one liquid containing another liquid. We all learned this in school chemistry classes, but now this really comes into play when you want to understand the basic fundamentals of glass and glassblowing. Glass is made from oxides, the most important one being sand. It is the other oxides in glass that make it harder or softer. For example, soda oxides produce softer glass, so less heat is needed to work with it. Lime makes glass harder. Also, oxides produce a vast array of color. For example, glass is naturally light green, but when you add tiny amounts of nickel or magnesium, you can produce purple glass. Cadmium makes red glass, and silver oxides can produce yellows. Obviously, the hotter the temperature, the softer the glass gets. Why is this important to know? Heat is the key element in glassblowing, and many beginning glassblowers make the mistake of not understanding that it takes more heat to work with a large piece of glass than a smaller one. Let’s say you want to fuse a small handle to a larger cup. In order to do this, both pieces of glass must be heated 4 to the same temperature, and it’s easy to make the mistake of overheating th