History of Glass Blowing

"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. Well, this activity is known as glassblowing, but if you think about it there really isn’t very much blowing involved. Most of what you’re doing is spinning and shaping the glass using means other than just air pressure. The reason it’s called glassblowing, in fact, is because the blow pipe was a great innovation back about 2 thousand years ago in 50 BC when it was invented. When we blow the glass, what we really want to do is change the shape of the piece by inflating the inside. In order to change the shape the right way, we need to control the heat. In general, there’s not much to blowing. You just put your lips on the pipe and puff, but the trick involves maintaining the shape you want by changing the heat. So, if I want to keep the bottom nice and thick, I’ll roll it on the marver for a second and that thickens it up by cooling it down, and to blow it’s really simple. Now, blowing by yourself at the bench is okay, but again, you’ve got a problem because you’re back here and you really can’t see what’s going on. So, if you have an assistant, you can have your assistant blow while you what’s going on and can also shape the piece. On this next round, I’m going to have my assistant Fern come in, and she’s going to blow on the pipe while I shape the piece."