Old Craft of Glassblowing now utilizing Technology

Posted on June 27, 2008 
Filed Under Digital Shopping

One of the oldest known crafts of Glassblowing started over 2000 years ago in Europe. Glassforming techniques involves inflating the molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of the blowpipe and human lung power from a blow tube. The craftsman who blows glass is called a Glassblower, Glassmith, or a Gaffer.

The ancient techniques of Glassblowing is a glass forming technique that was was invented by the Phoenicians around 50 BCE. They even have pieces of the blown glass that was found along the Syro-Palestinian coast.

There are three furnaces used in Glassblowing.

The first, furnace contains a crucible of molten glass.
The second furnace, Glory Hole, used to reheat a piece in between steps of working with it.
The third furnace, the Lehr is used to slowly cool the glass that is done over a period of a few hours to a several days. these techniques have been developed to help keep the glass from cracking due to thermal stress. Historically, all three of the furnaces were contained in one furnace, the furnace has a set of progressively cooler chambers for each of the three purposes.

Glass Blowing’s major tools that are involved in glassblowing are the blowpipe,or blow tube, the punty,or pontil, a bench, a marver, jacks, paddles, tweezers, blocks, and a several shears. The tip of the blowpipe is first preheated, then dipped in the molten glass in the furnace. The molten glass is gathered  up onto the blowpipe. I am kinda glad I work in IT.

The glassblowing tradition was carried on in Europe from the medieval period through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance in the demise of the Roman Empire in the fifth century ACE. During the early medieval period, the Franks manipulated the technique of glassblowing by creating the simple corrugated moulds and developing the claws decoration techniques. As we can see there is massive history of the use and development of glass blowing.

The tradition glassblowing is still being carried on today. The acient techniques of glass blowing is keep alive though HandBlownGlass.net. Just drop by the their glass art gallery and view the HandBlown Glass showcases that are the best of what glass blowing is all about. You can can view the online glass art gallery, pick the style or piece you want and they will create and hand blow the pieces for you.
Even save on gas as it will be delivered to your house.

Old craft using Technology.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Old Craft of Glassblowing now utilizing Technology”

  1. google nemesis on July 3rd, 2008 12:00 pm

    google nemesis…

    GOOGLE NEMESIS IS LAUNCHING…

  2. Pages tagged "glassblowing" on July 27th, 2008 11:32 am

    […] bookmarks tagged glassblowing Old Craft of Glassblowing now utilizing Technology saved by 17 others     SierraLorna bookmarked on 07/27/08 | […]

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