Handmade Blown Glass Tumbler - Watch & Learn

Hi, welcome to Kent State University's class program. Today I'm going to demonstrate how to make a very simple two-gather cup. What I mean by two-gathers, I'm going to do a double dip. I'm not going to start with a starter bubble. I'm just going to gather once, let it cool down a second, gather over it until I've got a nice ball of glass, and then I'm going to marver that and shape that. Now, this shape is a very particular kind of shape. It's going to make it very easy to make thin walls and a thick base. So we have something substantial to punty onto. So let's get started. Make sure my blowpipe is nice and hot on the tip. And I'm going to make my first gather quite small. It's just going to be enough to make the tip of my blowpipe bigger. It doesn't matter whether it's your first or last gather. You want your gather to come out even, nice and round. I'm not just dipping it. But you notice also I have it gathered all the way back here. I'm just right on the tip, about an inch. Once it starts to cool down, maybe after 10 seconds, I'll gather over it. And again, making sure that I turn a lot and I gather really even. When I come out of this furnace, I should have a nice round gather. So my goal here is to have an even gather. And because I've double dipped, I should have glass that's evenly heated all the way through. I'm going to marver very gently. I'm supporting the weight. And I want to make a slightly cone shape where it's more tapered toward the tip. If my tip is uneven, to round it out, I'm going to push forward very slightly like this. And what I end up with is a conical shape. And now I will introduce my bubble. I thumb it, hold it up. And by holding it up, I'm making a little wide space for the bubble to fit into. So now what I've got is a big bubble and a thick tip. And now I'm going to heat this up and stretch it. The next thing that I do is going to be the most critical thing to getting a nice thin cup with thin rim. Without using a soap or anything. And that is going to be doing a drop heat. I'm going to heat it up and stretch it. Okay, so this part, I'm getting it quite hot. I used to only have one shot at this. Quite hot. It should be moving quite a lot. See? And I'm going to come out. On the way over, I'm going to stretch it. And that's going to stretch out the neckline. So see how it's stretching? Pretty soon, right here, it's going to make a little waist. That's where I'm going to put my jack line. I'm just going to start it really quickly. And now I'm going to blow really hard. And then I'm going to finish my jack line. So that starting the jack line just makes a little line where my jack line is going to be. It blows back out, but I still have a line to start. So I want you to notice a couple of things. One, look how far off the blowpipe the neckline is. Two, look how small the neckline is. It's about the size of one of my fingers. Minimum size is as big as your thumb. Second, the jack line is centered with the blowpipe. I still got a big chunk of glass here. Now I can heat it up and stretch it to elongate my bubble. If it takes you two times to do that, that's fine. One time to stretch it, start the jack line and blow it up. And then maybe you'd have to reheat it to put the jack line in. But really, it should take only those two times. And the most critical part is that first stretch that's hot enough. You can start the jack line and blow quite hard to blow up a big ball. You don't want to have to be blowing into something where the neck is already so cold that only the thick base blows up. Remember, thin glass heats up faster, it also cools down faster. Okay, so now I've been heating up everything except for the neckline. I'm just going to come out and stretch it. I'm turning evenly. And if I got it hot enough, it should just make a cylinder without me doing anything, swinging or anything. Now, I can blow it up a little bit more. Chill the bottom and blow a little bit. So, I've got a jack line, fairly straight sides, still a really thick bottom. I can make a really tall cup if I want. But I'm just going to swing it one more time or heat up and stretch it one more time and then flatten the bottom. Elongate it a little bit more. Chill the bottom before I start. So, now I've elongated the cylinder and I'm ready to flatten the bottom. So, I've got a jack line, nice and tight, straight sides, still got a thick base. I'm going to heat just the bottom and flatten it. So, here is where it's really critical that I'm not inside the glory hole at all. I'm only going to heat up that hemisphere. So, I'm going to pretend that there is a wall of heat right at the doors and I'm just touching that wall of heat with the bottom of the glass. That's going to heat up just the base but not the sides. If I'm inside like this, I will heat up all the sides and when I flatten the bottom, the whole sides will collapse. So, just the bottom. Start with my jacks at an angle, turn a lot and push very, very hard. So, take a look at the tip of this now, down here. See that? It's pointy right there. That is because I did not start by pushing flat. I started like this, like this and I'm going to fold in. What that does is it takes the hemisphere and compresses the glass. It makes it thicker right in the very middle. If I just squish the bottom flat without somebody blowing, it's just going to inverse the dome. And so, I'll have a dome pushed into the bottom of my cup. So, I'll chill the sides to make sure that I have something cold to push against. Push very hard on the bottom. Use the corner of the jacks to dent the bottom in very slightly. And there we go. I've got straight sides, flat bottom, still got a nice thick base on there. And now, we're ready for a punty. When you put it on the punty, barely touch it. That gives you a chance to center it up if it's off center. It also means you're not smashing it on. And I'm going to chill the neckline. I'm going to match the angle of the glass with my jacks and pull away from me slightly. I'm pulling away from the bench. So, see that elongated all that glass that was up there on the front? It literally stretched all the glass right there. This is arguably the most aggressive you'll ever be. Get in there and you let the blades open and you start stretching that glass out. We almost got it in one. I'll give it one more heat and finish it up. Go inside and I usually finish on the outside. Because that allows me to make the outside shape nice and crisp. There we go. Simple cylindrical cup. Nice thick base. Thin rim. And remember that's just a double dip. Two small gathers. Now we'll go ahead and break it off. The way I like to break things off is a lot of gentle tapping. And if it's a good punty and my bottom was nice. There you go. If you take a close look at the punty you can see that even though it's quite big, it is quite smooth. So there you go. Simple cylinder. Thick base. Thin rim. Simple punty. Until next time.