The Master's Tools (Part 1) Why I Work With Four Different Burners in My Workshop.

The Master's Tools (Part 1)  Why I Work With Four Different Burners in My Workshop.

Most people, looking at a finished, intricately silvered ornament, rarely stop to wonder where its life actually begins. It begins in fire. In my workshop, the heart of the entire operation beats at the burner station this is where hard, cold glass tubes, under temperatures exceeding 1,000°C 1,832°F, transform into a plastic mass from which I free-hand blow each ornament.

Today I am opening a new series on the blog: "The Master's Tools" in which I will take you behind the scenes of my workshop, one instrument at a time.

First into the fire: the most important tool of all. Many customers ask me: "Surely one burner is enough for hand-blowing glass?"

The answer is no. Every form, every detail, and every glass thickness demands entirely different treatment. In my daily work I use four different burners from classic constructions, through specialist versions, to my most recent acquisition: an engineering burner from the Czech Republic.

Each has a different power output, a different flame focus, and a completely different gas-to-oxygen mixture ratio. Working with a single tool would be a significant limitation a shortcut that has no place in my craft.

In the coming posts in this series, I will introduce each burner in turn. I will talk about its history, the specifics of working with it, and show you how each type of flame affects what I am able to create at the table.

Follow the blog in the next instalment, we take the first one apart.