2006 UK holiday 7: St Helens World of Glass (page 2/6)

Organic Cornish Pasty

Seen at a supermarket (Tesco) in Whaley Bridge.

Glassblowing Kilns

The World of Glass includes a live demonstration of glass-blowing.

Starting to work

The red at the end of the rod in her hand is heated glass.

glass colouring rod

They buy these black cylinders from Germany; to make a coloured glass vessel they cut off a disk of colour and heat it, then fuse it to the glass. [more...]

Shaping the glass

The red-hot glass is on the end of a long metal rod that’s used to keep the glass worker away from the heat. Here, she rolls the rod back and forth and [...] [more...]

After heating

The rod was dipped into a kiln of molten glass and heated, and is now being shaped using soggy newspaper.

After heating (blurry)

Maybe it lends action and excitement, or maybe it was dark and I didn’t hold the camera still enough.

Glass Kiln

This ultra-hot kiln contains the molten glass. In the middle you can just see the glass-blower’s rod with the lump of white-hot glass on the end of it. [more...]

Shaping the vase

Rolling the hot glass on the end of the rod to make it symmetrical.