From a 2,100°F gather to its final cooling in the kiln, every step of our process is a dance between heat, gravity, and skill—transforming raw glass into pieces made to last for generations.
Hand Tools
Glassblowing is one of the few crafts where the tools have barely changed since medieval times. In our studio, gaffers still work with hand-forged glass shears, stainless steel jacks, water-soaked wooden blocks, paddles, and precision tweezers—each one an extension of the glassblower’s hands. These timeless tools shape molten glass with the same movements practiced in studios around the world for centuries.
Alongside these, a few modern refinements have earned their place in the hot shop: high-temperature Kevlar, kiln shelves, rubber blow hoses, temperature controllers, and hot torches—small innovations that make the process safer and more precise while preserving its ancient soul.
Glassblowing isn’t learned overnight. While the basics can be picked up in months, true mastery takes years of repetition, guidance, and commitment. Our team has spent over 14 years at the bench, apprenticing in production studios for half a decade, working in glass factories for another half decade, taking courses from renowned maestros such as Lino Tagliapietra, Davide Fuin, Cesare Toffolo, and Davide Salvadori, and attending world-class programs at Pilchuck School of Glass and Penland School of Craft.
Those years of training—combined with furnace rebuilding, maintaining equipment, and blowing glass five days a week—have shaped a skillset grounded in both tradition and discipline. Every step of this journey was funded entirely through our own work—one piece at a time, one year at a time—selling glass to invest in the education and experience that would ultimately lead to the opening of our own studio in 2018. Today, each piece we make still reflects that persistence, discipline, and devotion to the craft.
The Hot Shop
At the heart of every glass studio is the furnace. At 2BGlass, we have a 1,000 lb Wetdog RDT with a recuperator, flue dampener, and advanced safety controls—engineered to keep glass crystal clear and at the perfect working temperature.
Surrounding it are three custom insulated glory holes, designed for small, medium, and large-scale work, along with pipe coolers, pickup ovens for seamless transfers, and temperature-controlled kilns that slowly and evenly cool each piece—relieving stress in the glass and ensuring lasting strength.
Our workstations are anchored by custom benches, steel marvers, heat shields, and yokes (rolling pipe holders that keep artists safely distanced from the flame). In the cold shop, precision equipment like the lap wheel, wet saw, drill press, and belt sander brings each piece to its final form—refined, polished, and ready to become an heirloom.
