The Rest of the set-up

Well - I've shown you the torch - I might as well show you the rest of the set up. ;-)

The torch (pre-installation of the marver) is front and centre. On either side, boards are clamped to the desk as elbow rests. (The plastic bag doesn't live there.)

There is a hot plate to the far right - which I admittedly use only as a place to put my MP3 player - which plugs into the surplus speakers - one is there on the desk - the white rectangular box. Lights illuminate the workspace, and give me quick access to bright light to better see colours in the hot glass.

To the left is the kiln - a Paragon - with the swing-up front door. I love this - the door is counter-balanced to swing up and out of the way easily, and to stay in whatever position it is placed. This kiln is big enough to take a 12 inch mandrel - which - by the way - I have now found is essential with this torch. You need more room to get away from the heat of the flame. A rod-end grabber is also a must with this torch. You just can't hold the glass as short and as close to this bigger flame.


Behind my torch - I have a block of "Oasis" type foam, that I store my dipped mandrels on. It sits on a giant lazy-susan, so I can rotate it to get to the size of mandrel that I need at any given moment. The lazy-susan is wood (Ikea) and I've only scorched the surface of it a couple of times by putting hot rods on it.








The concentrators - all three of them - lurk under the table. They are a 10 litre per minute on the left, and two (further back) 5 litre per minute concentrators.










This is my stash of glass - this is the official, sorted stash.












And this is the overflow - which I am scared to put on the shelf. I have another shelf that I should move into place to hold the rest of this glass, but it is about 2 inches too wide for the gap - so I would have to unload the first shelf to move it to make enough room. You can imagine my lack of enthusiasm for that project!







The floor is painted concrete. The "security officer" lying on the floor generally snoozes behind me while I work. He's in charge of scaring away burglars and making dust bunnies of truly staggering proportions. He's very good at both those activities. ;-) They don't call 'em German Shedders for nothing!