Its nearly Christmas so the three of us went up to London to see the lights, blow some glass and have some fun.
Someone in SWT has a sense of humor, I remember seeing something similar a few years back. One of the things I love about coming up to London are the little things like this, if you keep your eyes open you see all sorts of things. Along with the lovely Christmas signs on the railway signs we also saw the two green men in the crossing lights in Trafalgar Square.
When we arrived at the studio, it was time to put the safety goggles on and then eat a few mince pies!
Things were warming up.
Micheal Ruh collecting a dollop of glass. He described like dipping and rotating a chopstick in honey.
He then showed us how glass fibre is made just by pulling a bit of the molten glass from the dollop. It was bendy and stretched around 6 meters before it broke.
Worrybomb picked her colours for a swirly bauble.
The glass was dipped in each and rolled on the metal table.
Lots of reheating was needed to keep the glass pliable
The swirls were added
And the little bit at the end snipped off and normally thrown away. ( we got to keep them !! )
A small puff starts to inflate the bubble
And then lots of puff is needed to get the final shape
The mould helps to keep things even. Its hard to blow and twist the heavy rod at the same time.
Then a dollop of clear glass is attached to the top to make the hanger
The colours dont show up much until the glass cools.
Then the glass has to be cooled down very slowly to stop it cracking. So it was off to Leons and some dinner.
After some food, we went for a wonder and we meet Pikachu in Trafalgar Square.
After a tour of Hamleys we headed back to the station, stopping off briefly to see the coke lorry and Christmas market, But we were not able to find any doughnuts there!
Then home on the train with doughnuts from M&S, popcorn and Enid Blyton.