About

Tannadyce Glass Workshop is based in Strathmore, Wellington, New Zealand. The workshop comprises several large workbenches, glass and glass accessory storage plus a kiln. For all class and general inquiries contact Ross. I look forward to meeting you and fulfilling your glass needs or desires.

My thoughts on glass

I love glass. It is a torturous material. It can easily cut you. It is hard to cut especially curves. It can break and break your heart when a piece simply fractures because it has a mind of its own. And yet it can last for a thousand years and maintain its colour and shape.

The history of glassmaking can be traced back to 3500 BC in Mesopotamia. To think there was a glass maker back in those times with his / her workshop / workbench, and fire makes me smile. Glass is in our everyday lives – ie windows, drinking, optics. When molten it will form any shape. It can be exquisitely crafted into ornate vases or thrown in the bin when the last drop of liquid is consumed. We treat glass with awe, we treat it recklessly.

Services provided

Tannadyce Glass Workshop is available to produce:
• Stained Glass (lead lighting & copper foil)
• Fused Glass
• Glass Painting (traditional)
• Teaching Classes
• Stained Glass Supplies

Tannadyce Glass Workshop is also available to help you develop your skills to make glass items to your design.

 

Reusche Glass Paints – Traditional Stained Glass Paint

Tannadyce Glass Workshop can provide the following Reusche glass paints. Paints are sold in 1oz glass jars (28.3gm)

57R001 Tracing Black     $18.50/oz

56R004 Ancient Brown          $16.50/oz

1139 Umber Brown     $17.50/oz

1333 Red For Flesh     $18.50/oz

D273359 Blue Transparent      NZ$20.50/oz

D231176 Amber L349 Transparent     NZ$16.50/oz

Fun Facts about Glass

Even the Egyptians used glass
The oldest examples of glass are Egyptian beads dating from 12,000 BC. At around 3,000 B.C. is when we find the first real evidence of manufactured glass by people. The Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria were hubs of glassmaking. The Romans spread a more modern glass manufacturing knowledge to its newly conquered lands.

The Glass Recipe
Making glass is like following a simple recipe of ingredients. The first 3 ingredients are in all glass: sand, soda ash and limestone, the fourth ingredient is the addition of chemicals to give glass their color.
Recycling a bottle
Glass containers can be recycled—that is, broken up and then melted with silica sand, limestone, and soda ash to make glass for new containers. Glass can be recycled easily because it does not deteriorate with use or age. The energy saving from recycling a single bottle will power a 100-watt light bulb for almost an hour or a colour TV for 20 minutes.
70% of Consumers
Seventy per cent of consumers believe that glass packaging suggests quality. Are you one of those?

Coddswallop
Many glass making terms have entered the language: ‘Coddswallop’: Hiram Codd invented the marble stoppered ‘pop’ bottle in the 1870s, and millions of the bottles were made, particularly in South Yorkshire. ‘Wallop’ was the name given to the cheap beer of the day, and beer drinkers dubbed the contents of the codd bottle ‘a load of coddswallop’.

Shut yer gob
Many glass making terms have entered the language: ‘Shut yer gob’: a molten lump of glass is called a ‘gob’ to which the glass blower attached a tube to blow the glass into shape. The blower had to blow hard which made his cheeks very large. Today someone with a big mouth is told they have a big gob.