Hello from Boone, NC

[GlennR]

Looks like a good site & forum. I enjoy making things, & it looks like I've found a new place to waste hours online!!


I'm a glassblower and made all my studio equipment. I'm working on a centrifugal glass casting machine for spin casting large glass bowls & glass sinks. The first molds will be made of foundry sand. I'll post some pics of it later.

Besides making things I like to ride motorcycles; street, trails, & ATVs. There's great riding here, in the NC mountains.

[Jon]

Hi Glenn - welcome to HomemadeTools.net

I believe you may be our first glassblower on board What kind of studio equipment did you build?

[GlennR]

I built the glass furnace, which has a 300 lb size crucible. It was waste oil fired, using a burner that I built & designed. I can't get the waste oil now, so I burn propane.

I also built the glory hole (reheating furnace), electric pipe warmer, 2 annealing ovens, a 24" flat lap grinder, a polishing lathe (jumbo bench grinder). Everything is very simple. Most is framed using 2" angle (I hide my ugly welds ).

The furnace & glory hole constructed with refractories (high temp brick, insulation, cements) which aren't common to most shops, but simple materials to use. I had to make a few simple wooden molds.
The annealing ovens are used for slowly cooling the glass. Mine are "top loaders", that look like chest freezers. They are insulated with insulating brick on the floor, ceramic fiber blanket on the walls & lid. The heating coils are fastened to the walls. The electric pipe warmer is a mini version.
The polishing lathe & lap grinder are very simple. Each has one powered 1" shaft. The lap machine looks like a large record player, spinning a large steel disc that's about the size of a man-hole cover. The lathe has a horizontal shaft that's about 32" long; one end has a felt polishing wheel, and the other has an expandable rubber sanding drum. They're about 8" in diameter x 3" wide. The shaft is long (wide) to provide good working clearance, because the glass is much larger & more delicate than the metal things you'd normally work on a bench grinder.




I'm gathering from the furnace, and the glory hole is to my left.

[Jon]

Impressive! If you've got pics of the individual tools you've built, please go ahead and post them. We'd love to get them added to the encyclopedia.

[Altair]

Hello Glenn! Welcome to the forums!

Unbelievable! A shop chock-full of homemade tools equipment! Resourcefulness at its best.

[kbalch]

Hi Glenn,

Welcome - very glad to have you here!

You've got a fascinating hobby there. My wife enjoys doing stained-glass work and we're both interested in traditional production techniques for colored glass. Tiffany, Chihuly, etc.

Let's see those homemade tools - and any photos of your work that you'd like to share!

Ken

[GlennR]

I need to take some shots of the equipment. Here's some glass; a vessel sink and a vase.

[DIYer]

Great-looking setup, GlennR. And your work is pretty impressive!

[kbalch]

Beautiful work!!

Ken