7

LENS

which gives you more control, but as it’s only a little
touch here and there it doesn’t burn – it just gets a
bit warm.”

HOT AIR
This next bit requires someone who knows what
they’re doing in charge, so Ann takes over spinning
the iron. We just get to do the essential step of filling
the bauble with air. One deep breath and the bauble
grows to grapefruit size as Ann spins it to make sure it
stays round. Now the thing that we’re making looks
like other things that people have made, which is a
good sign. It’s time to get the bauble off the iron, but
working with glass requires its own logic. Rather than
cut the bauble off, we use a tool called a pair of jacks

• they look a lot like a pair of shears, with a handle in
  the middle and two blades that cut into the glass. This
  looks like it’s cutting, but in fact it’s cooling the glass
  at a place we can control. This makes it brittle at that
  point, which means we can break it off.
  “To take the piece off the iron we have to make
  what’s called a necking line, which is where the glass
  will break away. If we don’t put that line in, it either
  stays attached to the iron, and then it ends really badly,
  or it will break off in completely the wrong place and
  the piece that you’ve been just been working on for an
  hour and a half will break right down the middle.”
  Ann adds a blob of molten glass to the top of the
  bauble to make a loop and that’s the thing complete.
  Sadly, I can’t put it in my pocket and take it home,
  because its still soft, and it’s still hot enough to melt
  my skin.

“Once the glass is made, we have to put it away

in the kiln, overnight. Even though it looks hard, it’s

still around 500 degrees. Between 500 and 380 is

where glass actually forms its structure; it’s called a

neolith. If you wanted to blow some glass and then

just leave it out in the air, it would be very susceptible

to temperature changes, because the structure of the

glass would have stresses in it.

“If you imagine a bauble, inside it’s going to stay

hotter than the outside. The outside is going to cool

faster than the inside, it’s going to contract while the

inside is going to stay the same, which will introduce

stresses into the glass. So we have to bring it down

nice and gently so it forms properly. We bring it

down by around 30C an hour, which means it cools

nicely, the glass forms with little to no stress in it, it’s

stronger and it can take temperature changes.“

Our final piece is surprisingly heavy, and seems to

look different every time we pick it up. It’s not perfect

but it’s ours, and it’s a living link back to methods that

have been used for thousands of years.

WHEN THE WOOD BURNS IT CREATES A

CARBON LAYER, WHICH DOESN’T STICK

TO GLASS AT ALL, AND BECAUSE IT’S

WET IT CREATES A KIND OF CUSHION

AROUND THE GLASS

“

”

Left

Ann demonstrates

proper use of the

jacks, a tool for

cooling specific areas

of the hot glass

Below

An extra blob of

plain molten glass to

form a loop, and our

bauble is complete.

Not bad for a

first attempt