RGH 1 (Bob) at the International Festival of Glass

 

Along with Nicky and Jodie and with help from Amy, Loz and Adam we represented Plymouth College of Art at the International Festival of Glass this year. I did some demos (see pic below) on how to make stemware without an assistant but the main reason we were there was to run an affordable furnace making course. Louise Cloke and Sarah Fell, recent graduates from PCA were selected for the prestigious Biannale exhibition and Louise was awarded an honoury mention.

 

 

We built the furnace in 2 1/2 days without the use of a workshop. In fact we built the whole thing with an angle grinder with a cutting wheel, a welder (borrowed from the brilliant Merlin), a drill and an assortment of hand tools. The group was fantastic, with lots of enthusiasm and a great sense of excitement and fun.

 

We lit the furnace and went on to make glass from it. I learnt a tremendous amount from the other demonstrators and would like to thank Merlin for all his help and tremendous support. Thanks too to Katie, Kieth, Gaz and all at Ruskin.

Special thanks to Plymouth College of Art for their continued support for this project.

 

We put together a facebook page and have uploaded all the photos that show construction of the furnace. It's called BOB Too and you can find it at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.144297652377597.30650.142804709193558&type=3#!/Bobtoo2012 .

 

 

 

Abobe. This is the first piece of glass to be made from Bob 2. Look out for the introduction of a user friendly version Bob 3 sometime in the new year.

Below. Demonstrating at the Ruskin Glass Centre. I was delighted to find that on that day, the glass quality from Bob was better than that from the larger glass furnace at Ruskin

 

 

 

Only one place left on the affordable furnace course at the International Festival of Glass

There's one place left on the course I'm running at the IFG from Aug 20th. We'll be building an affordable glass furnace and working from it, finding new ways to work without an assistant. This is all to create a new, sustainable business model for glass blowing students and graduates. If we can get lots of micro businesses up and running in sheds in our gardens, one in ten could become larger and who knows? Perhaps in 10 years time we may have new glass factories and a healthy manufacturing industry in the UK. For more info, go to  http://www.ifg.org.uk

Here's a sample of work made last week without an assistant. The course is not about what I can do, but what anyone can do with a bit of patience and enthusiasm

I would like to thank Plymouth College of Art for their support and encouragement, without which none of the work on this blog would have been possible

All research, published papers and technical information on this blog is the intellectual property of Ian Hankey but is free of charge to anyone who finds it useful. Any attempt to profit financially by selling information to a third party is a breach of copyright. Help and advice using skype will be given on the building of a furnace providing that the glassmaker uses the burner and control system specified (see the Combustion system, Saflame page for further info)

Furnace design © Ian Hankey Sept 1^st 2002

Blog © Ian Hankey 14^th March 2011

_______________________________________________________________________

I'm running a master class at the International Festival of Glass at the Ruskin Glass Centre from the 20th August. We will be building a furnace on site and working it using recycled glass, learning how to make complex glassware without the aid of an assistant. For information about the course and the International Glass Fesival go to http://www.ifg.org.uk  
This year is particularly exciting as Richard Marquis is making a rare UK visit. Although his course is already full it's well worth going just to see if you can watch him work.
http://www.ifg.org.uk

Research at Plymouth College of Art

The workshop, a collaboration between myself on behalf of Plymouth College of Art, Dartington Crystal and The Shops at Dartington

Up-cycling

 

Did you know that you can use all the couloured waste glass from your sudio to produce this transparent blue, no matter what coulour you put in? Most people think that if you re-melt coloured glass you will get swirls or a dirty brown. That's the case with cast glass, but at standard working temperatures the furnace is actually a chemical reactor. The chemical reaction that takes place is homogenous, and gives this light blue every time with only a slight variation ( 6 melts so far ). As we can be paying up to £1000 per ton these days, it makes sense to recycle all our coloured glass as well as the clear. Check out the pieces below. These are made from glass that was destined for land fill. On a page on this site you will be able to read about using bottle glass and other recycled glass to produce 100% upcycled products like these:-

5th Firing at dartington

I'm looking forward to welcolming Plymouth College of Art  students and Graduates into a co operative under the Dartington Hand Blown Studio Glass banner. The shops at Dartington have given us a great spot with passing trade all year round and lots of coach parties. The rent will be only £40 per day for member glassmakers.

The great thing about this site is that we can engage with the public and capture the imagination of adults and children, creating the next generation of craftspeople. it's amazing to see how happy people are when they actually make something. It really gives a spiritual lift in an increasingly throw away society.

BUILD A GLASSMAKING WORKSHOP ON A SHOESTRING The first firing at Dartington for August bank holiday 2011.

 The workshop was built and equipment installed in less than 4 weeks. Special thanks to Plymouth College of Art for supporting the research. Thanks to John at Dartington for the construction work. It's amazing to think that this spot was empty at the beginning of the month. Also thanks to Barbara King of The Shops at Dartington and Neil Hughes of Dartington Crystal who has kindly sponsered the project through free cullet, the glassmaking bench, blowing irons and the marvre.

The Gloryhole is a new development. it runs almost 200 degrees hotter than the furnace mouth but has no enrgy source driving it. I have to admit, I had no idea that this would be successful when I designed it. I had an idea that air would be sucked in to the gloryhole and out through the flue, causing the gloryhole to run inefficiently. However, due to the unique furnace design, this is not the case. In fact, when the gloryhole is opened up (it's covered with the round ceramic fibre disc you can see on the floor when not in use) the temp of the furnace actually increases by 20 degrees. The same is true of the furnace mouth.
This means that the furnace runs more efficiantly with the irons warming and the gloryhole open. Who'd have thought a pedal bin I bought for £3 from the tip would work so well?
The furnace cost just under £400 to build, but I got most of the steelwork free or cheap as most of it is scrap. The combustion chamber is a standard steel oil drum that cost a fiver from a local pallet recycle firm. Don't fabricate one, it'll cost up to £200  as you'll need a large scale roller. The combustion equipment is amazing. It's far more advanved than anything I've seen before, can be lit and stabalised at 100 degrees without overfiring, has the power to go up like a rocket and heat the much larger furnace that I'm designing and - this is the best bit - automatically relights if it goes out through a break in gas or electricity supply. The price of the burner plus controller and thermocouple is just over £2,000 but this is a great investment as it will run any furnace I build over many years to come.
You can get prices and info from Saflame Ltd
6 Peel Road, West Pimbo, Skelmersdale, Lancashire,WN8 9PT
01695550400 
IMPORTANT - anyone who would like to build one of my furnaces can contact me for permission to use the design but the condition is that you must use the burner and control equipment that was designed to run with the furnace. This is due primarilly to safety considerations. Any installation MUST be checked by a gas safe engineer and a gas safe certificate must be given before the furnace is commissioned.