Gather Practice: Beginning Glass Blowing: Free Online Video Lesson

Glassblowing is the art of creating glass structures such as simple utilitarian vessels or delicate works of art. The process involves gathering molten glass on a hollow steel rod, rolling the “gather” on a slab of marble or flat piece of steel called a marver, and then blowing into the rod creating an air-bubble in the center of the gather. The glass is shaped continually using the marver and wet blocks made of fruit wood and is reheated several times throughout the forming process. A rod with a glass bulb at the tip, called a punty, is attached to the piece to allow the glassblower to finish the work. At the end the the punty is removed and the glass is placed in a final cooling furnace to slowly cool the glass. In all there are three furnaces the glassblower uses: the first furnace is just “the furnace” which is used to melt and hold the molten glass, the next is “the glory hole” which is used to reheat and “flash” the glass being worked, and the third and finishing furnace is called “the annealer”. The glass can be worked clear or with an inexhaustible array of colors added to suit the working artist.

Learn beginning glassblowing from expert glassblower Jim McKelvey who has been teaching glassblowing in 1987 and has taught thousands of students how to safely use glass and fire. Learn glass blowing with tips and techniques such as gathering the glass, blowing and capping, centering glass, using the marver and blocks, flashing the glass, taking glass off the punty, using an optic mold, spinning glass for waves, and placing glass in the annealer in this free online video series.

"Hi! I’m Jim McKelvey with Third Degree Glass Factory in St. Louis. You can check us out on the web at www.stlglass.com. Today, we’re going to learn about glassblowing for expertvillage.com. One of the secrets to making really nice glass is making really even gathers. Gathering out of the tank can be sort of difficult, because the tank is very hot and it’s hard to see what’s going on. So, if you’re a beginning student, there are some tricks that you can use to learn how to gather correctly. We’re going to teach you those today. To teach you those, I’d like you to take a cold blow pipe. This is just a normal blow pipe, but don’t get one that’s hot. Get one that’s cold, then you’re going to need a just a regular bucket of water. In this bucket of water, we’re going to practice the moves that you’ll do in the furnace. We’re going to practice them so that they become automatic, so that once that furnace door opens, you already know what to do get the glass out in a safe and even way. There are 7 steps to a perfect gather. I’m going to show you these right now. The first is to turn the pipe, and you want to have a nice comfortable position turning the pipe. Typically, when we hold a glass pipe, we’ve got our left hand forward like this and our right hand back, but when we’re gathering, if that left hand stays forward it’s going to get burned from the furnace heat. The first step for a perfect gather is to set the pipe on the sill of the tank and roll it up against the right side. Now, I’m assuming you’re right-handed, and most studios are right-handed places, so the door is going to be opening to the left, and you’re going to roll it to the right side of the tank. To begin with, step 1, set the pipe on the tank and roll it against that right door, and then get that right hand back. You’re going to get it back here, and if you forget to do this, the tank is going to remind you because it’s going to very hot up there. So, you get your hand back, and now, you put the glass into the tank until you can see the reflection of the pipe on the surface of the glass. Now, inside a glass tank everything is glowing yellow, so you won’t be able to actually see the glass, because the glass and the walls of the furnace and the pot that the glass is in are all going to be exactly the same temperature. So the only way you can tell where the glass is, is to notice this reflection that the top of the pipe makes with the surface of the glass. Now, once you see those reflections and the pipe, you want to make the reflection touch the pipe. At that point, you know you’re touching the glass. Don’t make the mistake of digging into the glass like a lot of the beginners do. What you want to do is simply touch those 2 reflections and hold that position. Now, lets take a look at what’s happening right here. As soon as those reflections touch, I’m really back about an inch on the pipe, because the pipe is going to come into the tank at a slight angle. So, that’s almost perfect. Most beginners make the mistake of submerging the pipe under the glass and then they get glass all the way back up here. Just let them touch and that’s efficient. Once you’ve touched the reflections, the next thing to do is to make 2 complete revolutions. Now, in theory, you really only have to go around once, but if you tried to only go around once you will probably go around less than once, and that won’t be good. So, I teach people to go around 2 full revolutions and hold the pipe in the same position. So, we’re going to go 1, 2. Now, you can go more than 2, that’s not a problem, just go at least 2. Then come up to level. You come up so the pipe is level and actually a little bit past level. What this will do is it will take the strand of glass that has fallen off the end, and it’ll cause that strand to come back onto the glass that you’re gathering and that strand will break off. The next step is to move your left hand forward and come out. You’re almost done, but at this point, you’ve gotten the glass onto the tip of the pipe but the glass is probably holding onto the back of the pipe. It’s probably bailing off back here. You want the glass out on the front where you can work it. So, what we do as a final step of a perfect gather is to hold the pipe down just slightly and let that glass fall off then end. Those are the 7 steps to a perfect gather."