THE HEAT IS ON

I like working with hot glass especially as in my particular style of glass working, I use flames. The bigger the flame the better. There are risks of course such as burning oneself, but I take that into consideration when working and actually in reality this danger makes me like hot glass working even better. One thing that doesn’t find favour with me and that’s when the heat is so intense, I start to sweat. No ordinary dribbles down the cheeks (on my face although the other end does get soaking if I’m working one a really big job!). Sometimes the amount of sweat running off my head is like a human Niagara Falls. Litres and litres seem to flow everywhere but the most critical places are inside my safety goggles. How the sweat gets in I don’t know but I do know that when it’s in then it’s a pain to get out. My eyes start filling up with sweat from everyone body part above eyebrow level. Its like working underwater at times.

At the other end, my feet start to feel like they are being washed but not in nice clean arm soapy water but by stale sticky sweaty sewar smelly dribbles that make by toes itch beyond the levels that I can ignore. I have tried wearing sandals without socks when I glass blow which working fine until one day, I dropped a piece of hot glass on the ground. It bounced, the hot glass that is and when it landed on my foot I started to bounce around as well. Frome that moment on I have always worn socks when near any flames and know that I just have to put up with sweaty feet.

Good thing is that I can always walk away from the flame if my glass techniques allow me to and there is a convenient gap in production. I can turn the flame down or off. Again, but only if this action doesn’t affect the glass objects that I am making. Most times I have to preserver as creating any glass object usually involves a heat. If you want to use a flame to work with glass, then it’s going to get hot.

I love glassblowing in the winter as the cold encourages me to turn up the flames and do large work. It’s the only way I can keep warm. Summertime and if I am lucky then there is no motivation since I am warm already. Temptation to work on small glass items but oh that’s so boring. Bib ideas deserve big flames and why not. I knew a glass blower once that wasn’t happy unless he wore a towel around his head. A type of PPE. Mind you I also knew a glassblower that wore shorts and was forever burning his knees. Always trick the dress code for a glass blower in the summer when the heat is on. Topless glassblowing has its place, but you need to be very good and angling the flame and positioning the hot glass. Always away from the body. Imagine working on a glass lathe spinning up glass at 1000 degrees and suddenly bots of glass fly off in your direction. Man, I guarantee you will run and win a gold medal for the fastest sprint ever. We tend to do things we wouldn’t dream of when chased by huge lumps of molten glass that if caught us would scar forever. Not the kind of memento I am looking for!

They say whoever “they” are that there’s no smoke without fire but, but also there’s no heat without flames. So, it came to be that I once interviewed someone for a job as a glassblower that didn’t like heat. Not only that but they were scared of flames. Well, I tried to accommodate their issues as one might, but I found it really tricky to get them to heat up the glass tubing without any flames or heat. I even employed my local dragon to breathe on the glass but that didn’t help. To be honest most dragons smell horrible and as soon as they came close to the glass, I was out of there! My trainee had fainted, and I was looking for another interviewee.

Heat I get, we all need it and I just love my central heating. Its controllable which is what most glassblowing torches are or should be. Small flames equal little heat and big flames then BIG heat in bucket loads. Its not rocket science. Hold one’s head close to the flame and noses get burnt. One step away and you find you need arms 10 metres in length to hold the glass out of the heat zone.

Working with major heating of glass tasks involves wearing aluminium clothing, visors, and all tools with extendable handles to avoid being scorched to death. Fun part of the job obviously!

I do wear Kevlar gloves – doesn’t everyone but the dexterity suffers and when holding carbon rod or similar to spin out hot glass the gloves do get in the way. Better that then hot finger or to be more accurate burnt to a blister fingers!

I’m off now to get a bit more heat treatment and hope this time my biro which I keep in my top pocket doesn’t melt as it did last time, I melted glass. The skin on my chest turning bright red form heat dint bother me but the melting of my heart did cause concern since I am meant to be a tough cookie!!! Heat resistant and all that. Idle spectators say glass blowers have asbestos fingers. If that’s true and we pick our noses, then that would perhaps explain why some glassblowers I know die of cancer!