Will “Glass Blower” be Automated?

Core Skills & Abilities

• Repair broken scrolls by replacing them with new sections of tubing.

• Superimpose bent tubing on asbestos patterns to ensure accuracy.

• Heat glass to pliable stage, using gas flames or ovens and rotating glass to heat it uniformly.

• Shape, bend, or join sections of glass, using paddles, pressing and flattening hand tools, or cork.

• Place glass into dies or molds of presses and control presses to form products, such as glassware components or optical blanks.

• Determine types and quantities of glass required to fabricate products.

• Design and create glass objects, using blowpipes and artisans' hand tools and equipment.

• Set up and adjust machine press stroke lengths and pressures and regulate oven temperatures, according to glass types to be processed.

• Inspect, weigh, and measure products to verify conformance to specifications, using instruments such as micrometers, calipers, magnifiers, or rulers.

• Place rubber hoses on ends of tubing and charge tubing with gas.

• Cut lengths of tubing to specified sizes, using files or cutting wheels.

• Record manufacturing information, such as quantities, sizes, or types of goods produced.

• Spray or swab molds with oil solutions to prevent adhesion of glass.

• Operate and maintain finishing machines to grind, drill, sand, bevel, decorate, wash, or polish glass or glass products.

• Develop sketches of glass products into blueprint specifications, applying knowledge of glass technology and glass blowing.

• Blow tubing into specified shapes to prevent glass from collapsing, using compressed air or own breath, or blow and rotate gathers in molds or on boards to obtain final shapes.