Glassblowing

(Creativity Skill)

Glassblowing is the process of forming glass into useful shapes while the glass is in a molten, semi-liquid state. A person who blows glass is called a glassblower, glassmith, or gaffer.

Glass is melted in furnaces from the raw ingredients of sand, limestone, soda ash, potash and other compounds.

This skill requires a large, complex and rather expensive set of tools, benches, blowing pipes and usually a 3 stage furnace capable of a thousand degrees or more temperature. Small scale work, referred to as 'lamp making' (and the blower known as a 'lampworker') can be done using an alcohol flame rather than the complex furnace system, but can be very expensive in the long term as well.