How Glass Blowers Make Glass

Glass is one of those everyday materials that we use everywhere and it is taken for granted a lot of the time. We use it in our cars, buildings, light bulbs and wine glasses, but few people know exactly how glass transforms from raw materials into the functional molded end products. Lets take a look at the required procedures for making glass.

1.) The basic ingredients used in glass making are sand and a few added minerals. The most common form of sand used is called Silica, and this is combined with specific amounts of soda ash and limestone. The amount of each component used has quite a big impact on how the glass turns out, and additional elements are often used to alter density and colour etc. For example, a glass blower might add a small amount of red dye to the mix to make pink champagne glasses.

2.) Around 1700oC is the temperature that the mixture is heated to. At this temperature the minerals in the mixture all become liquid and blend together. In order to achieve this heat, huge furnaces are needed. Traditionally the glass mix was heated in coal-powered furnaces, however electric furnaces are increasing in number all the time. When the glass mix is in a molten state, it can easily be manipulated and sculpted or blown in to specific shapes. This is a skill that takes years to master and is very easy to get wrong.

3.) The glass is cooled after it has been shaped, sometimes forcefully and other times naturally. This cooling period directly effects how the hardened glass will end up in terms of how strong it is, how it reacts when broken, and how refractive it is. For example, whisky glasses are often cooled slowly as this makes them less susceptible to scratches, although the refractive index is slightly lower than other types of glass