BUBBLE GLASSWARE

The bubble bowl vase has long been a standard for flower shops, providing economical designs with a touch of class. ZX Decor Bubble glassware leaves stylish impact with minimal fresh products and design labor. You can offer options to customers, who want buy different sizes and colors.

These bubble glassware are made in different workshops. The cost of establishing a glass workshop can vary enormously and must depend on the scale and type of operation, as well as the degree of 'self help' available. Depending on how elaborate the equipment is the cost can be varying from a few thousand dollars to as mush as a hundred thousand. A hot glass facility is more expensive to set up and maintain than a studio equipped only for fusing or cold working. While there is no idea size or shape for a workshop, 1000-2000 square feet can be divided into a hot and cold working areas, storage, packing, office and display. Less space will work adequately, just as bigger may well be better. Layout will be the outcome of practical, physical and aesthetic consideration to aid the flow of work. The workshop should be well ventilated an extraction system to dispose of heat and fumes is advisable (some colourants give off toxic fumes). Ready access to water is essential for wetting and cooling tools in hot working and not least for safety purpose.

Floors, if concrete or quarry tiled, can be laid to drain away water used in hosing down. Both extremely basic and highly sophisticated studios exist and work.

Most important of any workshops is Furnace; Furnace design has become a great deal more sophisticated since the 'historic' collaboration between Littleton and Labino at the Toledo Seminars of 1962, particularly in the areas of temperature control and insulation, with consequent energy cost saving.

Pot furnaces: currently the majority of studios seem to favor 'pot' furnaces, which employ a cast siliminite crucible or clay pot as the container for 150-300lb of glass in an average two or three person workshop. The pots are usually freestanding within a furnace structure of high-temperature insulating materials in a metal framework.

Electric furnaces: Electricity is usually a more expensive fuel that oil or gas but a number of studios have turned to electric furnaces because they are silent and relatively fume-free.

Gloryhole: these are reheating chambers and vary from heated brick boxes to, most commonly, 40-gallon oil drums lined with ceramic fibre. The working temperature will normally be 100-200 C higher than the furnace temperature.