Glassblowing a Bubble

Hello students and welcome back to the Kent State Hot Shop. Today we're going to demonstrate how to blow a bubble. So today you're going to need a pair of jacks, your tweezers, make sure that's set up correctly. You're going to need the glory hole to be on because you're going to take flashes and reheats. And we're going to introduce the puffers. So this box of puffers lives under the marver and when you open it up there should be two sets of puffers. The actual mechanism that blows and the air comes out of this white end and then the rubber nipple piece. And there's two of them so each bench should have their own set. When you use these you want to make sure that the little knob is turned all the way to the right. If it is all the way to the left it won't direct that air all the way through so just make sure that's tightened all the way. Once you guys use these make sure they get sanitized before you put them back in the box. I would also appreciate it if you guys wipe down the box itself since you guys touch that so much. This can live at the back of the bench. That way it's easy and accessible for your student to your blow slot partners to put that on your blow pipe. So you guys are going to need for this assignment a blow pipe is a hollow tube. You can see at the end that there's a hole and that's where the glass will be is on this end and there's also a mouthpiece with a white tip. These also have rubber handles. There's red and blue ones that you guys can use and it is also a thicker diameter. It is slightly heavier as well so make sure when you're looking at these the honey rods are solid and the blow pipes are hollow. How you attach the blow pipe to the puffer is you use the rubber nipple that gets attached to the tip of the blow pipe and then your assistant as you're turning holds this white end to the rubber tip and you want to press against that and puff and you should be able to turn as you do so. If you have any concerns about that you can always practice by putting it up there and then having your whoever is on the bench check to see if air is coming through. So I'm going to heat up my blow pipe make sure that it is a rosy color so then we can actually gather glass on top of it. Another way to make sure that you heat up your honey rods or your blow pipes a little bit quicker we dip the tip of the blow pipe into the glass and then as we come out we make sure the tip ends up on the end and where that trails off on the tip we'll end up making this a very nice clean shape. You want to make sure that you're turning nice and evenly and I'm centered up in the blow pipe. I'm not all the way out here so I don't have a lot of control like this. You can see it's kind of hard to turn so I'm going to bring this all back in. If after you gather your blow pipe is too hot make sure you come over to the pipe cooler and have your assistant start at the cold spot and work your way down and that water will cool off the blow pipe. So now we're going to take our second dip. Again as we pull out the tip it's going to be where that glass trails off and not. So what we're doing now is we're shaping and dropping that out and then as we're shaping that by moving and using gravity and then I'm going to tell them to go on and that means that we're going to start blowing. So go on, slow down, off. So I have about two-thirds of the bubble inside that glass, that massive glass. I'm going to hang it down slightly just so that you guys can see that it starts to shape it up a little bit differently. So now I'm going to go into the glory hole and do what we call a repeat. So I'm going to let that heat saturate in the glass. We're getting movement. It should come out with some color and moving quite a bit. You don't want it to be just moving ever so slightly or you're not going to be able to get your neck line in. And when we come out of the glory hole as you walk to the bench try to stretch that a little bit and then when you sit down at the bench that is when you continue stretching before. That will give you a space in the bubble to make the neck line. So watch as I come out of the glory hole how much movement this bubble has from before. See it's moving quite a bit. I let it stretch as I walk to the bench as I sit down. It makes a little waist and that's going to be the spot that I make that neck line. I don't want that to be up on the loyal either. I want it to be offset so then I actually can make the bubble itself and a nice clean neck line. And then once I have that neck line in I'm going to tell my assistant to go on. They're going to blow for me. Keep going, keep going. I'm communicating the whole time. Off. Go back in and re-establish that neck line. Clean that up. So if I have enough heat I can tell my assistant now to blow or I can go and take a reheat and make sure I blow that out as much as I can but keeping it even all the way through. So I'm going to take a reheat. I go in to feel staying warm inside the door but my bubble is getting hotter. I'm turning and once I have a good heat I'm going to come out have my assistant blow. On. Go back in and establish my neck line. When the neck line gets really small just make sure that you're turning nice and even or your form will have the chance to tag back on the moil. We don't want that. We want to keep our form on the end nice and clean. So it all is in the left hand that control. Making sure you're turning with the glass. We're going to let this cool down a little bit and then we're going to take a flash. And remember a flash is just a couple seconds of heat to keep the glass nice and happy and warm. I'm watching that color dissipate from the bubble and I can see that I still have quite a bit of heat in that moil because it's a rosy color. And now I'm ready to go take a flip. I'm in. If I'm a little on the big side my assistant can open the door for me. We've talked about that in class. I'm going to use the cold part of my jacks to check that neck line and then I'm going to use my tweezers to break it off. We're not hammering it and we're not fisting it. We're using our fingertips to bonk it off like this. And there you have it. So double check and make sure you broke it off nice and clean. It should be flat and there shouldn't be any super jagged ridges. If you're getting that readdress how you're putting your neck line in. Other than that if you guys have any other questions just feel free to email me and we can discuss that later. Have a good day.