The
Ceramics and Glass Class was blessed with a visit to
Blenko Glass in Milton, West Virginia on June 6. Blenko was started by William Blenko in 1893 and moved to Milton in 1921. They hand craft glassware using age-old methods of hand-gathering glass and blowing the molten glass into molds. The only machine they use to make the glass is the ultimate machine, the human body!
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| Molten Glass inside a oven ready for glass making. |
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| Jason getting his glass ready to blow into a candy dish. |
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| A candy dish being formed by hand by a Blenko artisan. |
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| The molds that glass is blown into are similar to these. They are either | made from wood or steel. |
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| Glass cullet ready to be reused in new glass. |
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| Wes is placing his water vase in the annealer. Over a period of about four hours the glass will cool. |
The chemistry behind the glass making process was discussed in my
Glass Making Chemistry blog entry. Over the course of the day each of our teachers made two water vases and a candy dish. We experienced first hand what is involved in making glass. While we did technically make glass, we couldn't have made anything you would recognize without the help of Blenko's artisans. I'm not sure we could have even created a fiasco without their assistance in fixing our mistakes!
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| The two water vases that I made at Blenko! |
Questions for consideration:
1. Why is it that cullet is used in glass making?
2. What would be the advantages of using steel over wood molds?
3. How could you overcome those disadvantages?
4. How long does it take to become a skilled glass blower?
Excellent photographs in this post. I liked the progression of the photos. They showed the stages of glass production.
ReplyDeleteThe experiences we had at Blenko will provide insight into the glass blowing process and give you depth to discuss with your students.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.