Air, Natural Air
Most glass workers use air from the mouth to gently form glass on the pipe and after. A common sight is an assistant kneeling by the bench moving with the end of the pipe mouthpiece blowing while the gaffer shapes the piece. Solo workers use a blowpipe hose extension, where surgical tubing, a very soft light amber color, is used with an elbow swivel that allows the pipe to rotate when the hose is attached. Besides the hose, an adaptor is needed to fit over the pipe mouth piece. The puffer is often natural air.
Air, Compressed
Since high pressure,120 psi, air is useful for running tools and sand blasting, many studios have compressed air at the bench where it is usually very low pressure, 5 psi or less,. The two most common uses are cooling selectively and with the puffer. Many shops have doors operated by compressed air cylinders. Created with a central or local air compressor. 2004-07-26
Air Gun or Nozzle
A tool with a trigger for releasing moderate to large amounts of air which is placed on a compressed air hose convenient for cooling glass selectively.
Air Compressor and Air Hose
A motor driven device using pistons, diaphragms, or rotary vane pumps to increase the pressure of atmospheric air so that it can be stored and distributed to do work or provide a blast of air. Usually electric in shops. Commonly the pump unit is mounted on the storage tank which may be on wheels or a larger upright cylinder. Small compressors without tanks are available, usually for painting. Distribution can be by reinforced rubber hoses or metal piping. PVC pipe is strongly discouraged for this use as it breaks with time and fires across the shop. Many shops have quick connect fittings located above head height at each work station.
Air driven, or pneumatic, tools are widely available for automobile work and include low and high speed grinding hammer scaling and cutting bits, socket drivers, etc. The tools are much lighter than electric, no metal windings inside. Some use a lot of air and require bigger compressors and tanks than many shops have. Tools are high pressure devices, usually 125 psi.
Annealer
Controlled temperature oven, usually electric in art glass studios, for cooling glass at a controlled rate to relieve strain that will break glass cooled quickly. Usually built by worker as volume is needed and temperature range is relatively low, 900-500 Degrees Farenheit.
Batch
A mixture of chemicals, mostly sand, to be melted to make glass. Batch can be mixed by the worker or bought. Today the most commonly used bought batch is from Spruce Pine Batch Co. although several other companies have appeared on the west coast: East Bay
Batch, Gaffer
Mixing batch requires care as many ingredients are poisonous or lung damaging. Cooking batch requires higher temperatures than melting cullet and takes more total energy.
Batch Trough
See Trough
Battledore
a wooden paddle used to flatten portions of a bottle as it is being hand blown. IGCB
Bee's Wax
Used to lubricate jacks and other tools. From fabric stores or use a candle. Carnauba wax is harder. Lubricant is also called mud and mixes for making it work are legendary in the industry.
Bell Kiln
Industry term for a glass fusing kiln where the part that opens is a box facing down,like a bell hangs, over a flat surface that may roll to one side, giving complete access to the work surface while retaining heat in a way that a lid or a door does not. The box is usually counterweight loaded so it rises and drops smoothly. www.greatkilns.com has one that is 4x8 feet. 2007-03-20
Bench
A glass worker's bench is most commonly a steel framed long armed chair with a wooden seat that extends beyond the arms on both sides. Below the arms are metal shields to protect the legs of the worker from the heat of the glass. The pipe or punty is placed on the arms and rolled out and back to keep the glass in a smooth round shape while working it. On the extended seat [or on a small table the same height] are placed metal tools, which may also hang on nails driven in the edge, and behind the seat are often buckets of water holding blocks and wooden tools. Since sliding tools must be waxed,jacks, and gripping tools must not,tweezers, shears, the waxed tools are placed tips to one edge, the unwaxed to the other.
A bench is a personal choice and may be built from wood with steel rails or may be built with sloping arms.
Bit Iron
See Iron
Blocks
Blocks are chunks of fruit wood, most commonly cherry but also pear and apple, which are carved to a shape useful in forming glass and then soaked in water until waterlogged. The steam from the water and the carbon that forms on the surface makes a durable tool to produce smooth glass. Usually will crack if allowed to dry out therefore kept in water or in plastic bag when traveling. Wooden rods and paddles are also used the same way.
Blow-back mold
a full-height mold with a bulb-like formation cut into the neck of the mold to facilitate severing the completed bottle from the blowpipe.
Blowpipe
see Pipe
Blowpipe Hose Extension
The extension slides over the mouthpiece with a 90 degree swivel connector attached to a 6 foot piece of latex tubing that is equipped with a mouthpiece. The use of the extension will enable you to work a piece at the bench or glory hole without bringing the pipe to your mouth. The thin tubing also makes clear how little pressure is needed for blowing properly heated glass.
Bucket
Most studios have a number of buckets around, with or without water in them. There are four in the image at right, two black ones on roll around stands holding blocks, one stainless bucket further back and one just peeking past the corner of the bench seat. These hold the wet tools, wood here, including a paddle sticking up at the left edge of the photo and the paper folded over the edge in the middle.
Burner, Burner Head
Most furnaces and almost all glory holes are heated with natural gas or propane driven through a burner head backed up by plumbing that may be more or less complicated and include safety features. The burner head is a matter of commercial contention and may be an open pipe, a ceramic construction or a similar metal construction. A head with many holes is designed to be quieter and offer a greater range of turn up and turn down. A ceramic head is designed to keep iron bits out of the glass. See Ribbon Burner
Calipers
A divider or compass like tool of two arms off a pivot but commonly with curved arms that hook in or out and primarily used for measurement or comparison. Outward curving arms are used for inside measurements while inward are used for outside. When used for measurement, the distance across the tips is put against a scale. When used for comparison, an existing object is matched to the new one.
Marver
A marver plate with grooves for spacing cane evenly to pickup on hot glass. Hard to make without a metal milling machine.
Car Kiln
More often seen in pottery work although casting places may use it, one end and the bottom are on wheels,the car, and the unit rolls into the other four sides forming a box, with a channel of sand to seal the bottom edge. Allows complete access to bulky stuff while not trying to move the insulating box ,and burners in the case of pottery.
Casting Ladle
The casting ladle is made of high grade cast iron and is designed to be welded to a handle made of 1" schedule 40 pipe. The ladle is 6 inches in diameter and will hold up to 7.5 pounds of glass.
Ceramic fiber blanket, board and paper
Modern industrial high temperature insulation to replace much more dangerous asbestos. Available in several forms and several temperature ranges. Blanket is usually sold in 100 "board foot" ,which is 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 inch, rolls. For annealers and most kilns, the lowest density and the lowest temp rating is all that is needed and this makes for lower cost.
Refractory Chair
Alternate name, historically, for a bench - where the gaffer sits.
Clamp
Alternate holding technique for partially worked glass GL5K Gimmick, Sabot
Pot
See Pot
Cold Working
The general name for sandblasting, grinding and polishing the glass. While many artists use the procedures of cold working as part of their artistic creation, most would prefer to avoid the labor intensive process of grinding off punty marks and polishing the result. Glass must always be worked wet, otherwise heat builds up rapidly and damages the tools and causes cracking in the glass. Grinder, Polisher, Another page
Color bars
Glassblowers using moderate amounts of color in their glass buy bars of concentrated colored glass about 1" in diameter and a foot long. This is cut in smaller chunks and melted, crushed or pulled.
Color crusher
Usually a heavy-walled steel pipe with a close fitting thick steel disk with a handle. Chunks of glass are put in the tube, the disk placed on top and the handle pounded with a hammer or just used like a mortar. Produces dust or small chunks ,frit. A great tool for making your own glass powders.
Color cutter
To get color bar into usable sizes, a cold chisel and hammer will work, often scattering expensive sharp pieces. A commercial cutter is a guillotine like frame with a holder for the glass that tries to keep things under control. Home built in a variety of designs.
Color oven or kiln
Any small kiln ,or corner of the annealer, used for preheating chunks of color bars to allow pickup without cracking. Copper enameling supplier or build, needs very simple temperature control. Usually has a blackboard near it to plot layout of various colors which may look identical.
Compass
A tool with two straight arms from a pivot, used today with a marker on one arm for marking out a circle, but historically in the manner we now use a divider.
Compressor
See Air Compressor
Cone
Pointed tapered tool ,cone shaped, Typically 7" long, 3" dia., with handle, wood or graphite, for opening glass shapes and providing a variable sized round tool for working the glass.
Contactor
A relay-like device used as a noisy power controller or as a safety cutoff because of leakage through SCR's. Contactor
Controller
When glass has to be held at a specific temperature or ramped slowly from one temperature to another, some kind of controller is used. These days it is usually digital, but mechanical and analog solid state controllers have been built. Controllers are available as small boxes that will ramp and hold and as more complicated systems that will control up to 5 or 8 units. Most continuously used studios will have the furnace under a control along with at least two annealers and a color oven. Some may have additional annealers and perhaps small units used as garages for parking hot glass.
Cooler
See Pipe Cooler
Copa
"Tool for shaping wraps into round and half round." Jim Moore tool Handled tool with a long U-shaped channel that tapers narrower toward the end. Another Source
Cork dust
is used on metal molds to give a carbon surface. Adhered with baked linseed oil or special paste sold for the purpose. see below.
Cork Paddles
Soft way to massage hot glass for flattening or indenting sides of blown piece. Unlike most thin paddles, these have thick round or oval pads of cork and
Board
A wooden face mask used by the furnace tender to protect him from the intense heat.
Crack off table
See Drop Off Table
Crack off bin/bucket
At the end of each use of pipes and punties there is usually a wad glass around the end. This glass will normally break and shatter off as it cools, fired with enough force to hurt people. Therefore the tools are left in metal ,heat proof, buckets or dry bins that capture the glass. Normally punties have less glass and are placed in water filled buckets ,stainless steel food service buckets are especially nice,. If a pipe is placed in water without sealing the end, the steam inside almost instantly makes the pipe too hot to hold, so pipes are put in steel barrels or flat bins. All crack off catchers are also used to dump mistakes, broken pieces and scrap glass. For larger containers a barrel is commonly used. Often clear glass is separated from colored for reuse.
Crimp
A tweezer like tool with metal pads on the ends that have a pattern. When hot glass is squeezed between the pads, the pattern is impressed. A leaf crimp is perhaps the most common, but ribs, circles, shells, etc. are available.
Crimper
A wooden form that is used to give a bowl or pitcher a crimped rim.
Cullet
Broken glass, which melts easier than batch. Can be remains of previous work, bottles, or purchased. The latter two may need chemical additions to make more workable.
Cutter, Color
An ongoing problem for blowers is cutting the color rods, which are usually about 1" in diameter and are often used in chunks about an inch long. They are very hard and very brittle and some of the methods used scatter color chips far and wide. Guillotine arrangements, cold chisels, etc., have been used.
Diamond Shears
Special pliers with a sharp diamond shaped opening for cutting Hot Glass Bits and, usually, a round opening at the tip for controlling punties, pulling glass, etc. Shown at second from left at right.
Dip mold
a one-piece mold open at the top.
Dividers
A tool consisting of two straight arms attached to a pivot. Used for "walking" off distances on charts or for construction as an alternative to scaled measurement. Greeks doing math would call them a compass. Lid Calipers
Dowel, Wood
Wooden dowels can be used alone or in large tweezer-like handles. From woodworker supply catalogs in cherry 1/8" to over an inch. Wood
Drill, Drill Bit
A tool for putting round holes in cold glass, the drill actually being the thing with the motor while the bit is the variable sized added piece that does the cutting.
Drop Off Table
When working glass, it is nice to have a partner, assistant, etc., who can glove up, take the piece while on the punty and carry it to the annealer. Some people ,me, working alone will take the piece on the punty, having chilled the join, and place it just above the floor of the annealer, rap it off, note it is upside down, instead of sitting on its bottom as it would if a gloved placement were used. After one has seen a piece pass between the hands of the assistant and crash on the floor, one considers a drop off table. This is nothing more than a rimmed table top, perhaps 18" square, padded with an inch or more of frax blanket, vermiculite or fiberglass. It may roll around and store gloves, knock off tools and other stuff underneath. A metal prop may support the punty if the table is wood, not metal. The glass is rapped off the punty onto the table and then carried to the annealer by the gloved blower working alone or caught above the table by the gloved assistant.
Eye Protection
Every glass worker should have several levels of eye protection. At a very minimum break resistant glasses to save the eyes from glass fragments. Furnace workers, according to tests, should be using at least a #3 and preferably a #4 welders shade to observe the furnace and glory hole.
Ferro, Ferritti
The flat plate and short rectangular bars used for heating cane in a glory hole in Italian work. Plate carried with a Pastorali
Files
Most glassblowers have at least a couple of files around, often rusty from being too close to the water used with wood tools. A file can be used to notch the glass of a heavy neck on a piece to increase chances of it coming off cleanly. Normally, only the corner of the file is used on the glass.
Fingers Hot Fingers
A form of gimmick for holding small glass objects including marbles, more often used in torch work.
Fire brick
A brick made to withstand high temperatures, costing more the higher the temperature.
Fire brick, Insulating
A very light, soft, easily cut, high temperature material than can form structural walls for kilns and backup hard fire brick.
Flame Sensor
A safety device used to insure that a flame actually exists when the equipment wants one. Two forms are a Purple Peeper that looks where the flame to sense the UV in a flame that does not exist in a hot wall, and a thermocouple like device that sits in the flame and detects both the heat and the conductivity of the flame. Part of the combustion train.
Footer, Footing Tool
Tool for shaping the thin flat foot of a goblet. Most commonly a pair of thin, 1/4", fruit wood, cherry, boards about 3" by 4", 75mm x 100mm, hinged on one long edge with a slight semicircular dish sanded/cut into the face of one board along the opposite edge from the hinge with a notch cut for the stem. The wet tool is gripped in the palm of the hand and brought up to the hot glass foot gather and the boards closed around the glass. The dish forms the upper side of the foot, the flat board opposite the bottom of the foot.
Fork
A long handed tool for placing and handling glass in the annealer and garage, typically with the fork rods covered with frax or fiberglass to reduce thermal shock.
Frit
Chunks of broken glass the size of raisins to grape nuts; bigger than powder. Can be bought. For smaller quantities usually made with crusher if color bar is on hand.
Fuming Chamber
A barrel or box with an exhaust fan and filter, used for applying chemical effects to the surface of the glass, when the fumes or dust are potentially poisonous.
Furnace
Place for melting glass, built of several kinds of high temperature, refractory, materials to hold the glass and hold in the heat without breaking down during the several months that furnaces usually run. See also Tank, Pot Furnace, and Refractory. Furnaces
Gadget
A tool for holding the foot of a glass, so a punty does not have to be used, speeding work.
Gaffer
from old term for grandfather, the person with the most experience working glass who does the most critical steps of the working and coordinates the rest of the team. Title given to the person in charge of a piece even if others have more experiences. Other people have titles like bit boy, bit gatherers, footers, handle makers, reheat boys, etc.
Garage Glass Garage
During the working of glass, it is sometimes useful to park the glass at or above the annealing temperature, about 900-1000 Farenheit, until some other work is done. While this can be done in an annealer, having a smaller space with specially designed doors can be useful in that it avoids damage to glass in the annealer and can allow glass still on the pipe or punty to park in the garage, the pipe extending through a split door.
Gather
Both the name for going to the furnace to get glass or to gather, or gathering, and for the glass gotten, first gather, second gather. The end of the pipe or punty is lowered into the glass and turned to drag the glass evenly around the pipe or previous gather. The analogy most often used for the process is turning a spoon or old fashioned wooden pickup in honey, keeping it turning to get to the plate. However, gathering glass involves stuff that is over 2000 farenheit that will melt and deform the previous gather if done too slowly, not to mention set clothes smoking.
Gathering Ball, Rod, Iron
A hollow ball on the end of a punty rod used for gathering more glass more quickly than can be picked up on a punty in two or three gathers. Used for small casting gathers and for cookies.
Gathering Ring
A clay ring floated on a large tank furnace. Once the crud is gathered from the area inside the ring, it keeps other surface crud from floating in to the space. Normally not used in crucible furnaces because of the smaller surface area.
Gauge, Gage
A tool, often of fixed shape, for measuring the size of something, like a cutout of sheet metal the matches the opening or shape of a production goblet. Also a dial displaying temp, pressure, etc. Also a measure of thickness or diameter of metal, as 16 gauge metal, based on an indirect measure, such as weight per square foot or a hole in a plate made in 1860, as wire gages are.
GFCI
A Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter is a safety device on high voltage, 120-240 volt ac, circuits, causing an interrupt when the current out differs from the current returning by more than a small amount, which is assumed to be leaking through a human body, but which may be leaking through water soaked insulation.
Gimmick
A device made to assist in making a piece, usually for holding glass instead of a hot punty, but may also be a neck former, lip shaper, etc., that performs a special purpose function.
Glory Hole
A place for reheating glass. In commercial shops may be part of a large multi-pot furnace, but in small shops is usually a separate structure. Usually hotter than holding temperature of glass furnace and shut off overnight while furnace is cooking. Usually shop built from a barrel with castable or fiber or framed with bricks. Uses more fuel than furnace, shut down when not in use.
Hot shops normally require two kinds of gloves, leather welding gloves for handling ordinary hot materials and ceramic fiber, or Kevlar, for handling hot solid glass in the 600-1000 degrees Farenheit. The latter are fairly fragile, should be preheated to drive off moisture and reduce thermal shock, and should not be used for tough jobs.
Grinder
Cold working equipment for shaping glass roughly before polisher is used. A grinder may be a flat disk, a vertical wheel or a belt. The first is used with either grit applied with a water supply or a diamond disk or pad, while wheels and belts have attached grits. Glass must always be worked wet, otherwise heat builds up rapidly and damages the tools and causes cracking in the glass.
Jacks
A hairpin shaped tool that springs open and when closed has long blades that are parallel about 12-15" long used for shaping glass. All parts of the tool are used by skilled glass workers, but the blades get the most use: closing in the narrow neck of the piece on the pipe and working the opening of lips. Blades may be nearly knife edged or rounded. Jacks are also made to hold round, replaceable, paper or wood
Kanthal, Nickel-Chromium Alloy, 80% Nickel/ 20% Chromium
A higher temp version of nichrome to be used when a box must be taken up to fusing, casting and melting temperatures. Beyond Kanthal, a brand name, silicon carbide rods, and higher voltages, must be used.
Kiln
Kiln is an alternate name for oven. A color kiln or annealing oven may be referred to with the other name. In the glass studio it is usually electric. While an annealer usually can't get much above the annealing temperature, about 1000F, a kiln is usually expected to be able to get to fusing temps or higher, 1500F, The most common forms resemble chest freezers with the door on top and refrigerators with door on the front although sliding lids have been used.
Knives, Knife
Most glass workers have an ugly old knife of some kind, perhaps "borrowed" from the kitchen. The thin edge and the point are used to reach in between the punty and the piece to chill small points to start separation of the piece.
Knock off table
Drop off table
Break off table
Lathe
A lathe is a horizontal motorized turning device. There are two kinds of lathe involved in glasswork. One is a large bedded device with two rotating heads used mostly in scientific glass working and handles tubing, especially large tubing, keeping two pieces turning and aligned while they are torched for joining. The other is the more delicate tool holder used for copper wheel engraving.
Lehr Leer
A mechanized annealing oven that is at high heat at one end and air temp or nearly so at the other. A conveyer carries glass pieces the length over the time needed for annealing. Saves the energy of reheating and the wear and tear of a heat/cool cycle that an oven requires, but only cost effective in a heavy production shop. Sometimes lehr is used as just as a name for a cooling oven. In an old time shop, the pieces are moved by hand from zone to cooler zone.
Lid Calipers
Used for gauging an inside diameter against an outside diameter, as in a lid that must fit inside or fit outside of a bottle or jar. Usually X shaped with inwardly curving tips on one side and slightly outwardly curving tips on the other, the tip contact points being the same distance from the pivot. Available from ceramic suppliers. Calipers Dividers Gauge
Marver
Metal, marble or graphite plate, most often steel, used for rolling glass to a cylinder or cone and chilling the surface to firm it for blowing. Should be large enough to roll largest piece over a more than one turn, over 2' for 8" piece. Some marvers are mounted at an angle or are adjustable to an angle which makes for easier work when many pieces are to be made with a tapered shape. A marver may have a textured surface .
Mashing Pliers
Pliers with pads on the end to shape glass, see crimps.
Moile
the name for the blob of glass at the end of the pipe before it has enough done to it to call it the bowl or stem or body or something else.
Mold
A wet or dry form for shaping glass. Dry forms can be metal, plaster, clay or wood. Wet molds are wood or metal. Dry forms may have carbon from acetylene flame, on the inside. Molds - Wood and Metal. The most widely used molds are thick cherry wood bowls, often with handles, used for providing the primary shape when blowing and for paperweights. Since the bowl size constantly changes as the wood burns out in use, small bowls become larger. Other fruit wood may be used.
Mud
wax mixture used to lubricate steel tools to keep from marking glass, may include carbon black and various waxes, mostly bees wax and carnuba, a harder wax.
Muffle
a small furnace. IGCB used for baking painted labels and probably for heating, preheating and garaging In ceramics, a burned fuel, non-electric, kiln with indirect heating, therefore a muffle wall to block the flame.
Murrini Cutter
Like a color cutter used for taking slices or chunks off a rod, but with murrini there is a need for more precision to preserve the image in the murrini and the losses must be low. Thus devices are air driven for a snap action with opposing hard shape edges.
Newspaper
Used for shaping glass when formed, wetted and held in the hand, to replace a marver, mold or block. Most often made from 4-5 sheets of full page newspaper, folded first in thirds, then the long ends are tucked into each other and the corners cut for flexibility and drainage. The result is flattened and water soaked then drained just before use. The water keeps the paper from burning and the shape is controlled by the shape of the hand. Paper marver is used for cylinders and glass rolled in place, not along it. People who like wood blocks often hate newspaper while those who use newspaper think wood is inflexible and expensive.
Optic
A cylinder, open or closed on the bottom, with even ridges and groove around the inside, used to produce optical effects and air stems. Chills glass which can then be twisted, etc., and pattern remains in glass. Also used for applying threads of color, which are carefully laid inside the optic before the glass inserted. Usually aluminum, almost impossible to home make.
Overmitt
When Kevlar gloves are used to handle hot glass, they both get damaged and over heat, prompting the user to peel them off as soon as possible. One way to avoid/reduce this is to pull on a mitten shape that adds extra thickness and takes some of the damage, but makes the hands more into paws.
Oxygen Generator Concentrator
A device which uses electricity to extract pure oxygen from water or air. In the former case, may also supply hydrogen. In the concentrator form, tanks of chemicals absorb the nitrogen in the air resulting in a higher concentration of oxygen. In both cases the quantity is limited by the watts available and since these are used to reduce the dependence on tanks, normally they are used for torch working, as well as health needs.
Paddles
Boards with handles, fruit wood, usually cherry, sometimes graphite or metal. Used for flattening glass and for shielding gaffer's arm.
Pacioffis, Cutting Edge, Parchoffi, Moore, Palmer, Rod Tongs, Putsch
Wooden tipped jacks used to open pieces without leaving jack marks on the glass.
Paste Mold
A metal mold that has been treated with a baked on compound, special or linseed oil and cork, so that it has a soft finish that can be soaked in water but is much more durable than wood.
Pastorale, Pastoralli, Pastorali
An Italian term for the metal tool on which pieces of cane get preheated in the glory hole or furnace.
Plate Spinner
Makes setting hot pastorelli plate down easier.
Pallette
Apparently a British term for paddle
Pi Dividers
Used to measure a straight length that will wrap around a circular shape. Usually made as a pair of curved jaws on one side of a pivot with straight divider arms on the other. When the curved jaws touch the outside diameter of the circular item, the straight arms are 3.1415926... as far apart.
Pick
Most glass workers have a sharp pointed pick, often bent at a right angle at one end and straight at the other. It may be a commercial scribe or be hand made. It is used to open tiny holes nothing else will get in and to draw threading in the feathering technique. Beadmakers use a titanium pick, hard and stands heat.
Pipe Brush
This tool can help eliminate the problem of metal flaking in the head of your blowpipe. Use this tool on a cold pipe.
Pipe, blowpipe
Used for blowing glass, tube with mouth piece on one end, used for picking up glass on other end, originally of iron/steel, usually today made of low conduction stainless steel although in 2003 there is a revival of carbon steel tubes claiming more stiffness and better grip, also cheaper, still with stainless heads.
Pipe Hanger
See Hanger
Pipe Cooler
A method of quickly applying water to a pipe which has gotten too hot to handle often from gathering low glass in a furnace. Can range from a wet rag to a dedicated spray tube with a foot switch.
Warmer Pipe Heater
Molten glass will not stick to cold metal. While it is possible to preheat the pipes and punties at furnace or glory hole, most studios have a rack to hold them in position in a dedicated flame or the exhaust from furnace or glory hole, or at the glory hole door in cheap situations. Ideally, the warmer has a range of temperatures so placement of a punty with glass color on it will neither drip or chill to cracking, so the gather of color can be reused. Must have something to allow for glass cracking off pipes/punties placed in it - a tray, etc.
Polisher
A wheel, belt, or disk used for putting the final finish on glass during cold working.
Pot
A ceramic clay bowl shaped holder for molten glass, usually removable for replacement when eroded or cracked. Must withstand weeks or months of sustained heat while not losing chunks onto the glass or dissolving too much. Pots with these features are brittle and require slow heating and cooling to prevent shattering. In older factories, lower technology pots were replaced weekly and making new ones was a considerable function of a department of the factory. A pot may hold from a few dozen pounds to several tons of glass. Glass weighs about 150 pounds per cubic foot and doubling the dimensions of the pot increases the capacity eight times.
Pot Furnace
A furnace using one or more crucibles, pots, for melting glass., see also Tank, In colonial American and equivalent European factories had six, eight and ten pots in the furnace each holding hundreds of pounds. The pots were made and fired in the factory and replaced by removing a section of the hot furnace wall. Pot furnaces are used now in art studios and some factories and for melting small, 10-20 pound, to large, 150-250 pound, quantities of color. Pots are always batch mode: cullet or batch glass is added, usually in the evening, and must be melted before working can begin. Pots may be invested by casting insulating material or free standing in the furnace.
Powder Cup, Powder Box
Colored powder is applied to hot glass by rolling the glass in a layer of the color. The layer may be on the marver or in a metal pie pan, but many artists like to use a brass or aluminum molded color cup to hold the powder, and move it out of the way, and shape the glass.
Pucellas
Pincher-like iron tongs used in manipulating and shaping blown glassware.
Puffer
An aluminum cone drilled to fit on a straight or bent blow tube, used to shape and open bubbles of glass.
Punty
Most often a solid tipped rod, with hollow or solid shaft, to take glass piece from the pipe so the lip can be worked but also used directly for paperweights and sculpture. Also used for gathering glass for hot bits of various shapes. Usually 54" long like pipes, 1/2" tip most common.
Reciprolap
A machine for semi-automatically grinding the bottom of paperweight, vases, etc. Requires preliminary flattening and a rubber ring around each piece. The lap consists of a plate that rotates or vibrates and has an abrasive plate or pad or cerium oxide on a soft pad.
Refractory
Any material that withstands the high heat needed for melting glass, the two most common being clay and ceramic fiber substances. Special clays fire up to form bricks that do not deform in the heat. If previously fired clay, grog, and organic material is added to the mix, insulating firebrick is created by the empty spaces in the fired clay. Ceramic fiber is a result of space research and insulates well. Two other refractories, known to gardeners, and sometimes used as insulation are vermiculite, which is expanded mica from volcanic regions and Perlite, which is made by heating crushed natural siliceous rock so the combined water makes it pop like popcorn.
Regulator
A device for controlling pressure, most often gas pressure in the glass studio. Gases used are stored or delivered at pressures too high for use, so a mechanical regulator uses springs to balance the pressure and control valves to supply useable pressures.
Relay
Device for controlling power in one circuit with another circuit. Controllers and Controlling Electric Power
Ribbon Burner
A ribbon burner in furnace work is a block of refractory with a couple of dozen holes set in the side of a glory hole. It is quieter, lower velocity flame, and more even heat - uniform from front to back. Most furnaces use a blast burner with the air and gas entering at fairly high velocity, which can be noisy. Many glory holes are heated the same way and some people like the torch effect. See Burner, There is also a ribbon burner in lampworking for heating a length of tubing for a long bend made of a pipe with holes in the side.
Rollers
Many shops have a set of rollers somewhere. Sometimes these are mounted on the bench arms, sometimes on a stand or on a flat plate. When on the arms or on a stand, the most common use is to simply work the glass in place, turning the glass in place instead of rolling along the bench arms. This may be gaffers choice, as a convenience to the person supplying air, or for use of an automatic air supply. When on a flat plate, the common use is threading. See also yoke
Sabot
Apparently a cup shape made with prongs, probably covered with soft refractory, used to hold base of bottle for final working.
Scoop, Batch or Cullet
See Trough
Scoop, Molten Glass
At the end a blowing session, if the furnace is to be shut down, the last of the glass must be removed to the bottom of the pot to keep the glass from freezing in the pot. The real problem is not on cooling, but on reheating, when the glass commonly expands more quickly than the pot, before getting molten, and cracks the pot. A scoop allows removing glass quickly. It is normally dipped in water to chill it before going into the furnace and allowed to drip off into a bucket of water or be plunged into the bucket.
Scoop, Color Powder
One method of holding color powder for rolling molten glass in it. Take a couple of aluminum ice scoops and set them in plaster or concrete so they can be lifted out to return the powder to the container. Powder Cup
Shaft Collar
A thick, 3/8"-1/2", washer with a set screw in the side that allows locking it on a pipe or rod. Most commonly used in glass for hanging the pipes and punties for cooling the glass. Made originally to keep a shaft from moving through a bearing, so sold with bearings. Come in hard steel and softer, zinc?, versions, the latter needed if drilling out is needed as it is for water pipe which is not exactly 1/2" or 3/4" OD.
Shears
Mostly like tin snips, but see Diamond Shears, available with various shaped cutting edges - straight, duckbill, etc. - used for trimming the lip and otherwise cutting away glass.
Shield
Protection from heat.
Most glass workers who do not use long sleeved shirts pull a cotton sock with the toe end open over their arm when working bigger pieces. Kevlar sleeves are now available. Wooden paddles held by other workers and full fledged flame gear are also used. Many workers put some kind of upright shield at the glory hole for body protection and to control ventilation and may shield yokes and hand tools. Most benches have a metal panel under the right arm to shield the gaffer's leg.
Snap Snapcase
A kind of punty for working the neck on bottles, with a cup to take the base of the bottle and arms with curved grip ends to hold the neck.
Sofietta
Italian name for puffer.
Steam Pad
If soggy newspaper is dropped on the floor and a puntied piece is lowered so the rim touches the paper, the steam formed will inflate the piece, forming it. S
Steam Stick
Glass may be "blown" without using breath or even a pipe, by using wet wood to both block an opening and produce steam inside the opening to inflate the piece. Such a piece of wood is a steam stick. The steam stick must be rotated with the glass to keep the seal, therefore a cone shaped wood with a smaller handle is useful.
Support
When wrapping glass, as well as other times, a simple support is needed to keep a punty steady.
Tagliol
Flat metal blade with heavy handle, used for flattening and grooving into hot glass.
Tank Furnace
A furnace for melting glass, usually starting about 300# and going up. A tank is usually rectangular and is lined with hard high temp fire brick which is sealed when the glass flows into the cracks and chills. A continuous tank has a barrier and two burner areas; raw glass is melted on one side of the barrier and flows under the barrier for pickup, leaving surface crud behind. See Pot furnace.
Tank, Gas
Commonly, a metal container built to withstand pressure to hold gas at room temperature. Depending on the storage pressure of the gas may be rather thin walled, propane, 250 psi, or very thick walled and heavy, acetylene, oxygen, 2000 psi,. Usually noticeable by domed/hemispherical ends to withstand pressure. Supplied with valves and fittings to attach pressure regulator and plumbing; these are shaped differently for each kind of gas for safety.
Thermocouple
A device for measuring temperature using an effect where a voltage is created in a material when the temperature varies along its length. Thermocouples are usually two kinds of metal wire.
Threading Rollers
Four bearings mounted on two brackets on a flat plate to allow quickly spinning the pipe/punty and the glass on it to run a thread of color around/along the glass. Brackets can be twisted before bolting down to spiral thread around the piece.
Torch
Most glass studios have one or more hand held torches.
Trough, Batch or Cullet
When loading batch or cullet into a furnace, often the opening is not so large as a shovel, and batch should not be spilled around the shop.
Tweezers
Tweezers made for glass working are long and wide spread and have bent in tips for fine gripping. They can be used as fine jacks when needed.
V-Block
A V-block is two pieces of wood nailed edge on with a triangular fill piece at one end. Wet newspaper is placed in it as liner and partially blown glass is placed on the wet glass in line with the length of the V to form cylinders. Like having 6-8 hands doing newspaper blocking.
Water
Water is a tool in a number of ways in the glass shop, most directly when it is used to chill glass causing a crackle effect, or to steam the wood or wet the newspaper used for shaping.
Wood
Fruit woods of various kinds, most often cherry, but apple, pear, etc. are used in a number of ways in furnace glassblowing. All wood that touches the glass is soaked in water until it is water logged, sinks,; once it is soaked, it must usually be kept wet or it will split on drying. Fruit wood is used because to has a tight even grain that holds water nicely and burns to a smooth carbon surface, besides smelling good when smoking. Blocks are chunks of wood, with or without a handle, with a spherical hole in them, for shaping and cooling the outside of the glass. Paddles are flat pieces used for shaping bottoms and squashing cookies and other items flat. Dowels or rods are used inside the opening for shaping. Blocks and chunks of wood to make blocks are the hardest to get.
Yoke
An arrangement of bearing balls, often on a Y frame, to support the pipe/punty at the fire and allow continued turning while heating, supporting the hotter, heavier end.
