Process

From gather to grind

Four stations. The photographs are from this vault, not a stock library of “artisan heat.” If you visit during hours, you may see one of these stages and none of the others — glass does not perform on a timer for tour groups.

Gallery

Gather, blow, anneal, cold-work

Read the sequence in order. Skipping a station is how a beautiful gather becomes a crate of cullet.

Maker gathering molten glass on a blowpipe from the furnace — **Gather** Pipe into the pot. A skin of 1100°C glass. Dip, turn, drip, dip again. Newspaper pads and beeswax on the bench jacks. The first gather decides whether the bowl will have a generous wall or a nervous one.

Blowing and shaping glass at the bench beside the glory hole — **Blow** Air, blocks, and the glory hole door. Shape is negotiated while gravity still wins. For kiln slabs this stage is a cutting table instead of a pipe — still heat, still a schedule, no theatrical blow.

Annealer cabinets along the stone wall of the studio — **Anneal** Into the box at about 480°C. Soak, then a programmed drop. Thin lips might leave in a day; a 90-hour cycle is normal for a heavy wall slab. We do not open the door because a guest wants to see “the finished piece.”

Cold-working a glass rim on a grinding wheel — **Cold-work** Diamond pads, cork, cerium oxide. Rims that will meet a table, edges that will meet a wall, pontil scars that would otherwise cut a hand. The cold shop faces the lane so dust does not share air with the annealer intake.

Kiln board

Posted beside the glory hole

The same numbers the floor works to. They are not a brand mood board.

1100°C

Glory hole

Working reheat. Door time is counted in seconds, not minutes. Orange is information, not decoration.

480°C

Annealer

Soak before the drop. Thick slabs stay on a 90-hour program. Thin vessels leave sooner.

Cold

Cold shop

Ambient Acre. Water on the wheels. Hearing protection. This is where a piece becomes safe to handle.

Schedules

What a week in the vault actually looks like

Hot-shop days and kiln-load days are not the same. Friday shuts at 13:00; Saturday the annealer still runs, unattended except for the controller.

Station	Heat / state	Typical hold	Who is on it
Glory hole	1100°C	Seconds between gathers	Two on the bench, one on the door
Pot / furnace	Molten charge	Held overnight on a night setback	Opening maker, Sunday 10:00
Kiln (fuse)	Programmed ramp	Hours at top temperature	Kiln programmer
Annealer	480°C soak, then drop	Up to 90 hours on slabs	Whoever packed the load
Cold shop	Ambient	Until the rim is honest	Grinder, after the box is cold

Demonstrations happen when a gather is already planned — not as a separate ticketed show. Phone first: +972 4 991 1764.