Glass Blown "Logger" Drinking Glass

Katherine Gray designs a wood-grain blown glass "Logger" drinking glass.

More from That's Clever!
Filed under: Glass Blowing, How To, Crafts

Katherine Gray's attraction to wood-grained patterns has produced one of her most distinctive styles, a collection of tree-like drinking glasses called "Loggers and Stumps."

Materials and Tools:

clear glass
amber glass
dary brown glass
punty rods
blowpipe
garage oven
annealing oven
glass furnace
propane torch/MAPP gas torch
marver
jacks
glass cutting shears
tinted safety glasses

Steps 1-2

Steps:

1. Pick a chunk (about the size of a film canister) of intensely colored amber glass out of a garage oven (where it has been pre-heating) on a punty rod that has a little bit of clear glass on the end.

2. Shape it by rolling it on a marver — a steel table used for shaping glass.

Step 3

3. Pick up some clear glass on a blowpipe and blow a small bubble. Shape it using various sized jacks.

Step 4

4. Overlay the amber glass. This covers the original clear bubble. Cut the molten amber glass above the bubble. Put it back in the glory hole to melt it in.

Step 5

5. Shape it up on the workbench using jacks. Blow it up again. Heat it and make a small cup by shaping the neck with jacks.

Step 6

6. Place the cup in a ring on the floor so you can fill it with more clear glass. These steps keep the glass color on the outside, so the pattern will look realistic.

Step 7

7. This bubble is then blown up a bit, shaped into a tube, which is then divided into two or three smaller sections.

Step 8

8. Each tube section is put into a hot oven (garage) to maintain their heat.

Step 9

9. On a blowpipe, make a small clear glass collar and attach it to one of the previously made cups in the garage.

Step 10

10. Warm this up in the glory hole and close off the open end so it is a sealed bubble on the end of the blowpipe.

Step 11

11. Blow this up about halfway and use a small propane/MAPP gas torch to 'draw' the wood grain onto the glass. Use very small, thin pieces of dark brown glass and melt these into the surface to make the logger pattern.

Step 12

12. When the drawing is done, finish forming most of the tall cylinder shape with a flat bottom on the blowpipe. Attach a punty rod to the bottom of the glass and break it off the blowpipe to finish what will be the top of the drinking glass.

Step 13

13. This requires a couple of heats in the glory hole to pull and trim the lip to thin it out and to open it so the whole glass is straight-sided.

Step 14

14. To give the glass some texture, again use the MAPP gas torch and spot heat where you have drawn rings that mimic knots. Once the area is hot, use a bent piece of steel rod and push out a bump from the inside. Once all of these are done (usually 2-4 of them), the glass is broken off of the punty rod and placed into an annealing oven where the blown glass logger drinking glass cools down slowly overnight.