Glass Blower

As a glass blower, you heat glass until it's hot and liquid, then use blow pipes, paddles and hand tools to shape it. You might make delicate wine glasses, colourful vases, scientific equipment or large art pieces - each one different. The work is physically demanding: the furnace is very hot and you need to concentrate hard, because once glass starts cooling it gets hard quickly and you can't change it.

Your day starts by preparing materials and firing up the furnace to the right temperature. Then you gather a blob of molten glass on the end of a pipe, blow air through it to inflate it, and shape it using various techniques. You'll work with designers who tell you what they want, make adjustments on the spot, and then finish the piece with polishing or engraving. Every piece needs to be checked for cracks or imperfections - quality matters, both for safety and for how it looks.