A few years ago at the Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee, iKandies took a lampworking class in which they attempted to make glass beads. iKandies has always been fascinated with glass and thought this would be a fun way to experiment with it. We learned about the properties of glass, torches, marvers, glass rods, safety... We found out this art is much harder than it appears! Although our beads weren't that great, and we haven't attempted to make any more, this class has given us a much greater appreciation for the skills and talent of the glass bead makers we meet!Recently iKandies had the opportunity to try our hand at glass blowing. Akron Glass works held a class where we learned some of the basic techniques and had a chance to get the feel of what is involved in this art craft while we made a glass pumpkin with instructor Jack Baker.
Jack walked us through the basic steps - quite a lot involved in making this pumpkin! He described the procedures and tools, then let us pick glass colors we could use for the body and the stem.
Jack has now added several layers of glass, including the colors we have chosen, and reheated it. The oven behind him is where he gathers the molten glass. The temperature is around 21000 degrees! We are using Jacks (the tool in my hand) to carve a line at what will be the bottom of my pumpkin so that it can be broken off the pipe.
All the layers of glass have been added and we're setting it in the pumpkin mold.It takes a lot of air to help coax this pumpkin into shape, but here's the final product. We keep the top hot with a blow torch while Jack prepares the stem. After he adds it, the pumpkin goes into the kiln for overnight baking.
And here's the final product!
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| Kriss' Pumpkin! |
Watch this YouTube video showing some of the steps involved in making our glass pumpkin, demonstrated by Debi and our instructor, Jack:
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