How to Make Hand Blown Glass Sculptures

Create your own glass figurines to decorate your home.

Creating glass figures as a hobby can enrich the decor your home. It is, nevertheless, one of the more dangerous hobbies and may result in injury. Before you start, make sure that you have all of the necessary safety gear. Careful implementation of these steps can result in some beautiful glass figurines with no injury to yourself.

Things You'll Need

• Safety goggles
• Protective gloves
• Heavy apron
• Glass torch
• Sticks of glass
• Graphite paddles
• Glass tweezers
• Graphite poles
• Kiln

Instructions

1. Decide on the colors of glass and the general design of the figure that you're trying to create. You may want to look at some interior design magazines to get some ideas.

2. Hold a stick of glass at one of the edges, touching as little glass as possible. Light the glass torch and put the other end of the stick of glass in the flame. Twirl the stick of glass until you have a ball of glass instead of a stick. Please note that safety goggles and gloves should be worn during this step as well as during any other steps of this process.

3. Make sure that you have a flat area in your workspace. Press down on the glass using graphite paddles to form a base for your glass sculpture. Join the base with more glass. Heat more sticks of glass and stick them on the original glass base.

4. Preheat your kiln to the temperature of the glass - about 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Form your sculpture by using glass tweezers to pull the hot glass, and use graphite poles to sculpt the glass.

5. Place the glass sculpture in the kiln when you're done sculpting. Reduce the heat of the kiln by anywhere from 60 to 90 degrees every hour. This prevents the glass from cracking.

References

• East Carolina University: Glassblowing Tools
• Warm Glass: The Tutorial