Awhile back I showed you what two tons of rocks looked like, today it's what 50 kilos of glass looks like. Many of you are lampworkers - and when you order glass - it arrives in nicely cut 33cm long rods of glass... but this photo is what it looks like coming directly from the factory.

Does it make your heart beat just a little faster??

For those of you who are NOT lampworkers - the beads are melted from glass rods that are pulled from large molten gathers from the furnaces at Lauscha. Below is a description of this process...

(back in 2000) I watched as this molten pile was pulled - one man held a paddle with the large gather of glass and the other walked backwards, stretching it into thinner rods of glass, moving faster or slower based upon their need to adjust the diameter of the rods they were pulling... so very cool to have seen this!

Of course, not all rods are the same diameter, but generally they were 2-4mm, 6-8mm, 8-10mm - and I guess you can guess why the price for the 2mm is so much more than the larger rods. ; )

After it cooled, it was pulled by a man seated in a chair - and he would just tap the glass and it would expertly break into just the meter long rods you see above. Things, I'm sure, have changed quite a bit in the near two decades... but this was the general approach. Smiles, Jill