MotoMoogly

thats lampwork not soft glassblowing.

i make pipes/bubblers/oil rigs though. im a lampworker. AMA!

you don't, it would never happen. holding a giant molten ball that will burn through your bone if you drop it on yourself really keeps the senses sharp :P

im a pipe maker.

you're going to need a torch, regulators, flashback arrestors, and an oxygen and a propane tank just to get the torch running. the minimum torch id go with is a nortel redmax so you're looking at like $500 for that setup not including the tanks. an oxygen tank is like $200 and a propane tank is like $50. then you need tools. graphite reamer, graphite pad, graphite bowl push, tungsten pick, wire grabbers, graphite reamer, mashers, sets of tweezers, theres so many tools you can buy. youll need to spend a minimum of $250 on those probably. you also need a kiln, if you're going to be making pipes and bowls and stuff youll need a decent sized one. thats going to run you a MINIMUM of 600 dollars and you really cant get it done for that. id go with a new kiln for about $950. you need the kiln or you cant keep any of the things you make, they'll all crack. you also need it to bring the prep work glass up to tempurature and for a lot of other reasons. you'll need a front load kiln with a bead door so you can stick things in there easily without letting too much heat escape. You'll also need a fan for ventilation at the bare minimum. what most people do is use a grow light hood or an HVAC hood to put over their workspace and run the fan through that so its more concentrated. you dont want to breathe in the fumes from the glass or if you're silver fuming you DEFINTELY dont want to breathe that in so you NEED ventilation. you're also going to need lots and lots of glass. honestly the only way to get into this is to give it your all and do it as a full time career. unless you're a filthy rich dude, the overhead is way way way too expensive and its pretty hard to learn. as far as the learning curve, its only as steep as your teacher is good and your willpower is strong. i had an amazing teacher who explained everythign incredibly thoroughly and who was a very close personal friend of mine and i was able to work side by side with him for a month before going out on my own. i recommend you look around on fb and glass forums and try to meet someone who will take you on as an apprentice because thats the fastest way to get good. if you learn yourself take a couple of lessons and add glassblowers on fb so you can ask what you're doing wrong if you get stuck.

i sell most of my glass on fb and not to headshops so get up on the glass community in facebook and poke around for a few months before you get into it. pm me if you have any more questions and il ltry to answer everything i can. when i was getting started no one could easily answer all the questions i had.

its funny because this is a valid question. you're not a rockstar for blowing glass. and i say this as a glassblower.

the funny thign is, most of these questions relate to lampworking. which he does not do and apparently is too cool for sense he wont even respond to those questions to say he doesn't do that. lol. if it wasn't for us pipe makers, OP would still be working with a colore pallete of like 10 colors. pipe makers are the reason this art has grown so massively in the last few years.

i was really worried about injuries like that when i was first getting on the torch, but its really hard to do. the blows you do are more like puffs. pff pff pff. not ever deep enough for you to be running out of breath, so you wouldn't need to inhale. you only blow when the glass is very molten usually, so you can't blow too long or hard because it will deform it. its a controlled thing. ive done it before just to see what would happen and while ive never sucked so hard that i collapsed the bubble i didn't feel like it hurt all that bad?