The method

The technique is a combination of glass shaped in the oven and glass-blowing. Typically, one would start by making a fused flat design with the specific pattern, colors, expressions etc. as one wants. This design is rolled (hereby the name) on the glass-blower’s pipe and is shaped to the design one wanted.

The method isn’t that different from the one glass-blowers use. The glass-blower just has more glass on the pipe, and it is often stringers there’re being rolled up.

Below, the technique is explained through pictures of a specific example, the making of a tall vase. There’s a short explanation to every picture.

The end of the paragraph is has some general considerations.

Example in pictures

The assemble of the design

Typically one would be able to see where the glass has been assembled – remember to think of that when you’re choosing a design.

One would also be able to feel the assemble, unless there is a glass overlay.

The reason that one can’t see the assemble on the glass blowers own work is that, he doesn’t use a whole glass plate that needs to be rolled up. He has some glass on the pipe, there’s the height of the design, and then he usually rolls colored powder and stringers of glass into the design.

Naturally, it would have been prettier without the assemble, but I don’t think it’s a disaster, if it’s possible to place the vase in a corner for example, the assemble wouldn’t be visible. We live with visible assembles in many other contexts, e.g. lamp shades, casts, clothes etc.

Glass overlay

A glass overlay provides more depth and a smoother surface.

Typically, the final design becomes bigger than the glass plate one started with, because it’s blown bigger. This means that the color gets lighter and any patterns can be blurry around the edges. The last part even more if there’s used glass overlay.

Design

The design can be spun in spiral – the glass blower does that when he rolls the glass on the metal plate by twisting the spinning a bit.

A design there contains vertical or horizontal lines can easy become crooked, because it’s difficult for the glass blower to avoid twisting the glass a little. Furthermore, the pattern too can become crooked when shaping the glass.

A symmetrical design or a design with the same distance between the elements can become unsymmetrical, because it can be difficult to assemble the ends of the glass in the roll-up process without changing the dimensions.

The bottom of the glass doesn’t always become flat and even, if not you can make it flat, e.g. using sanders.

Bullseye

The glass blower usually works with glass with the expandability on 96 – which mean that one can hand in a design from for example System 96 glass.

If the design doesn’t have glass overlay, one can use Bullseye glass instead. Remember though to hand in the button in Bullseye. The diameter has to be the length of the design divided by phi. Alternatively, the glass can be squished together – but that makes the design smaller and some glass will be lost.