Customer Reviews

A Glassblower's Companion: A Compilation of Studio Equipment Designs, Essays, & Glassblowing Ideas

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contains designs for: 5 different glory holes,10 dif. melting furnaces,4 styles of annealers and slumpers, pipe heater,electric hot cane pick up, electric garage, bit box, and a hanger box. also contains information on firing , gas safety systems , burner heads, and mixers. this is a must for people who haven't had the opportunity to have there hands held at ritzy art academies.

p.s. it also contains interesting tidbits on ceramic core vessel making!!!

One of a kind. Exceptional resource for general glass information and a pragmatic resource for building annealing ovens. Easy to read with great graphics and illustrations. I especially appreaciated the glossary of glass terminology.

i bought both this book and glass notes 4.0 edition. glass blowers companion seemed to focus mainly on construction of furnaces and seemed to be quite old fashioned. i bought the book after seeing some plans for sale on building an annealer. the plans were NOT in the book and he only had like one page dedicated to making annealers. and his section on controlers was even shorter: basicly a crudely drawn picture of a kiln plugged into a box plugged into the wall. in fact, at this point he recommends that you buy glass notes if you want more info on these things.

my advice: dont buy this book. buy glass notes instead. it has all kinds of details and formulas on heating, elements, recipes and has a huge list of kiln/materials suppliers in the back. plus its written with a modern approach to building kilns and wasnt wrtten by a grumpy old fogy stuck in the 19th century of glass blowing.

I agree it is a must have if you are considering setting up a studio. It is also an excellent book for learning how the basic equipment works. This book has plans for building both gas fired and electric equipment for large and small scale operations. The book goes further and covers the concepts behind the designs with information that will allow you to work towards your own designs if so desired.