You Can Learn Glass Blowing (1938) | Hacker News Reader

You Can Learn Glass Blowing (1938)

blog.modernmechanix.com

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The book every glassblower uses is “Advanced Glassworking Techniques”. The book is written entirely by hand, so it looks like you’re reading someone’s private sketchbook. I’ve never read a more aesthetically pleasing book.

http://www.glassmtn.com/press/blowing.htm

Another example of printed handwritten books are the Wainwright guides which were not typeset because the author didn’t trust the typesetter to not make mistakes.

And Forrest Mims' Engineers' Notebooks and Mini-Notebooks.

https://hackaday.com/2017/01/18/forrest-mims-radio-shack-and...

http://www.zpag.net/Electroniques/Kit/The%20Forrest%20Mims%2...

The handwritten part starts on page 5 (page 14 of the PDF).

The Ashley Book of Knots is also a beautifully hand-written book.

https://www.amazon.com/Ashley-Book-Knots-Clifford-W/dp/03850...

And Kathleen Lonsdale's space group tables: https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/kathleen-lonsdales-cr...

For a fun dive into "competitive glass-blowing" take a look at Blown Away, two seasons on Netflix. One of my daughter's favorites.

It's a good look at artists, technicians, creativity, and personalities.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9908860/

it's fine, but watch it with the sound off.

I love watching shows like this! The Great Pottery Throw Down was good too on HBO Max. I love watching creative people work. I find they have a lot more freedom to their process than I do. I’d probably logic myself out of 10 ways to do something, but creatives seem to have an easier time of “I’m gonna try it and see what happens.” Even when they don’t get a result they expect, they might find it lovely anyways and just go with it.

"Even when they don’t get a result they expect, they might find it lovely anyways and just go with it."

That happens to me in game design, too ... and other areas of computer art, or just UI.

But yeah, not what you can do while implementing buisness logic.

Same here. You may also like “The Big Flower Fight” on Netflix.

I just finished binging that show! I really liked it but would have wished that each episode were longer. As it stands there was not enough time to really show off the work, especially in the early episodes that had a lot of glass blowers.

Thanks a lot, I just took a dive into it.

Edit: I really like the art, but not the format of the show.

I loved Great British Bake-off because it made me want to bake. Blown Away totally failed to raise any interest in glass-blowing, you learn almost nothing about the actual practice. After 3 hours I still have no clue how it is done.

It could be greatly improved by theming based on styles (i.e. making vessels, making sculptures) and discussions around why each pieces/techniques will be challenging. Instead it is literally the same shots of them rolling hot glass and putting fire on things for 15-20 minutes and then they judge it.

That's a shame. It's kind of a fascinating art that I think is very similar to chess, in that you have to be thinking a dozen moves ahead. I took a series of classes that exposed me to the basics, so I understand the tools and techniques that they are using and some of the why, but I still have trouble seeing the end result and explaining the why of any particular step.

I think all of these shows suffer from this same problem. It shows people performing their art in a very superficial way. I would absolutely watch a show where after each episode each of the contestants made a 15 minute YouTube video walking through their video segments explaining what they were doing and why in deep detail.

The one exception to this flaw I remember was a restoration show on History channel. I don't remember the name... some guy named Rick that liked sleeveless shirts working in the desert.

Anyway, for at least the first two seasons it was great: there was a lot of discussion on how to restore a piece, what it originally looked like, where problems might occur, how to find or make replacement parts, etc., and then showing the actual work in detail. My wife and I both thought it was great.

Then it had the fate of all such reality shows about actually making things: not enough drama. So the manufactured drama and "excitement" started and at that point it went downhill rapidly.

I did a glass blowing thing for a corporate off-site in Half Moon Bay. A skilled artisan helps you make a glass pumpkin, takes a few hours, lots of fun.

The experience is kind of on rails, the artisan/instructor will keep you on track so it's pretty hard to mess up, but also make it feel like you're doing the work. Everyone ended up with a nice pumpkin.

Agreed, I had been watching old episodes of Forged in Fire[1] while on the rowing machine (and I have taken a couple of blacksmithing classes, so I had some sense of what the challenges were), but Blown Away was disappointing as it emphasizes the 'art' aspect much more than the 'craft' angle, so pieces are made with lots of techniques, in lots of forms (and little real explanation), so comparing them can't really be done in terms of function, and the aesthetic critiques didn't do much for me. Looks fun, though.

1: https://www.history.com/shows/forged-in-fire

I don't disagree that Blown Away doesn't go into the techniques or that doing so wouldn't have made it a stronger show, but I still would recommend it if someone is interested in blowing glass.

My wife and I got into the show about a month ago, breezed through both seasons, and really enjoyed it. While I'd love to know more about the techniques (and my wife and I have talked about taking classes once things get back to normal), I literally have practically zero reference for how to blow glass, so to get into any techniques the show would really have to get into a Glass 101 type explanations, which I think would have dragged the format that they chose (30min slot, 22m of content) down a bit too much.

The other side is that while the technique is certainly interesting, it very much was an artistic show, not a technique show. There were some pieces that were better artistically that were "judged" to be better than more technically proficient pieces. That's just a choice the show decided to make.

>An ordinary workbench, about 3 feet high, is satisfactory, or use a kitchen table. Cover the top with sheet asbestos, or preferably asbestos board, and at the back provide a rack for holding your stock of glass tubing in various sizes.

Ummm . . . no thanks

There's a wonderful old school informative video about asbestos on YT about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxfZSEboVM4

It's hard not to yell, "No! Don't touch it!". Though, it's easy to see why it was flocked to. The handling is pretty simple for the fire proofing benefits... minus the cancer part.

How much worse do things get when you touch it? I was under the impression that breathing it was what caused problems.

(Funnily enough, I feel I've heard that breathing glass also causes problems for glassblowers...)

A lot of the asbestos in the youtube video above is in fibrous form, like the fireproof asbestos clothing. So touching it would probably release some fibres into the air. A small amount isn't actually all that bad. But it adds up over time.

Conversely, the asbestos in products like asbestos roof tiles is harmless when it's just sitting there, which is why it can be perfectly safe to just seal it up, or even do nothing at all. Of course, during demolition, you will release deadly asbestos fibres into the air unless precautions are taken.

The fact that asbestos isn't immediately harmful - and can be used safely - is probably part of the problem: it's easy to ignore long term effects because it's not obviously and immediately toxic.

It's hard not to watch something like that and wonder which of today's everyday items people in 80 years will look back at and yell, "No! Don't touch it!".

Past related thread:

You Can Learn Glass Blowing (1938) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15834149 - Dec 2017 (25 comments)

Glass blowing is a great team building exercise. You all get to take something home and cheer each other on, and if you mess up you can get seriously injured. All the hallmarks of a great team building exercise. :)

But seriously it was a ton of fun and actually not that dangerous. The instructors don't let you do anything stupid.

When I first heard that glass blowers called the unwanted top of a blown object the moil [1], I laughed and laughed.

Why:

A mohel ... is a Jew trained in the practice of brit milah, the "covenant of circumcision."[2]

[1] https://www.cmog.org/glass-dictionary/moil

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohel

Wouldn't that make the glass blower the Mohel?

My daughter took a scientific glass blowing course in college. She loved it and they loved her. Teacher basically said "I need to retire. Do you want to take over?"

I watched a piece a couple years ago about a super talented glass blower that was working for a university. Something something dying breed and he was the last of his kind. It's actually a pretty interesting career opportunity because of all the intersections it has with materials, science, design, and art. I can hardly believe there was a vacuum there, I'd jump to do it if I had the opportunity to actually learn the trade.

On the dying breed aspect - https://kjzz.org/content/535871/asu-third-generation-scienti...

> "Laboratory glassware is extremely expensive – and we drop stuff from time to time," said Dempster.

> Dempster estimated the glass shop charges 1/10 to 1/20 of what companies would, with a much faster turnaround.

> Nevertheless, scientific glassblowing is a dying art.

> "It's slowly been dwindling. Like, lately, if people retire, they kind of shut down the shop and start outsourcing. But us glassblowers are trying to change that," said Roeger.

> Roeger is working to reestablish the apprenticeship program in which she learned her skills.

> "The apprenticeship program is a four-year, full-time, hands-on training with a master glassblower, and it really does take that much to be able to produce glassware that customers can use."

> For now, she's glad to see more women entering a historically male-dominated field.

Nice. My understanding is the laboratory machine shops have the same continuity issue.

My daughter is a scientist and an artists - which I believe is why she excelled with glass blowing.

Also a good read - History of Glassblowing, Who Was First? By W. Joe Wheeler ( https://asgs-glass.org/history-of-glassblowing-who-was-first... )

I know of him through his work at the Chemistry Department at UW Madison.

An article on his son retiring in 2016 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17240776

And then an article on his granddaughter (3rd generation glass blower) https://kjzz.org/content/535871/asu-third-generation-scienti...

... And for a bonus, a RPAN stream of a glassblower - https://www.reddit.com/rpan/r/TheArtistStudio/gf518v

The blog stopped updating in 2013. (I'm happy it still exists though.)

Man, I love that "Age of DIY" that "Modern Mechanix" and other publications of that era reflected.

I remember when I was a boy discovering volumes of the book "The Boy Mechanic" (yeah, that title: they were published around 1900 though) on the bookshelf of a friend's home. I was captivated.

I think the articles had just enough diagrams, photos, description to give you a nudge in the right direction without overwhelming you with exact part-lists, dimensional plans, etc. That vagueness might have even left the door open for experimentation (accidental or intentional) so that you arrive at your own design...

At some point the "Popular Mechanics" became almost a front for some entrepreneur selling plans on ... converting a VW to an airplane in your garage, but that was okay too.

Later I discovered the two volumes of "The Way Things Work" (not DIY at all, but in a similar spirit, I suppose).

I love those old publications, miss the spirit of those days.

Now I wonder - what is a 'beverage sipper', and how is it different from a 'glass' or 'cup'?

I bought a port sipper set at a thrift store once, they're pretty neat. Basically a glass pipe for drinks with a built-in straw, e.g. https://www.drinkstuff.com/productimg/120982_large.jpg

Hmmm, seems closely related to the Spanish porron [1]. Closely related geographically as well.

The porron is supposed to be for communal drinking without touching lips to a shared vessel. Although as far as I've been able to tell is used as much for drunk people to get wine all over their shirts.

The port sippers seem to me personally to be... a little more childish? Clearly it's just my cultural associations, but I feel like drinking through a straw is like drinking from a sippy cup.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porron

Interesting. The information pamphlet that came with my set made reference to naval banquets, so perhaps it was intended to prevent spills while on rough seas. Bit of convergent evolution with the children's sippy cup perhaps.

It’s a straw as referenced later in the article.

Off topic, but this documentary on the glass blowing renaissance for bongs is really good: https://archive.org/details/DegenerateArt

It’s also on YouTube (but I can’t work out how to canonicalise YouTube video urls).

A few years ago, we did a team-building trip to a glass blowing place in San Francisco (Public Glass?) and it was a lot of fun to make some glassware. I recommend it if you have the chance. We got to do hands-on stuff, although of course the instructors were doing the skilled work. The class gave me a lot more appreciation for how glass objects are created.

Modern glassblowing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oETDTbzFJss&list=WL&index=3&...

But what if I suck?

Pasting instead of copying. This scares me

Glass blowing is clearly going to replace most manual jobs in the 1940-50s. If you are one of those unemployed chimney sweepers you should look it up.

No matter how hard you try, you absolutely will create a bunch of chunky, ugly cups akin to elementary school arts and crafts. Also like elementary arts and crafts, it’s a lot of fun.

Presumably you'll make a glass stick, or else an emergency room visit, depending on how hard you suck.

Worth noting that the Fairchild era luminaries did all their own glass blowing. It was considered a basic skill for their era.

Any articles on DIY laser lens?

Enjoy your silicosis

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