Relatively few photos of glassblowing were taken at Firing Six, most of them of blowing three designs of small beakers based on Merovingian and possibly Islamic beakers, and which were made for a TV series (rhymes with 'pitcher'!).

These were all mould-blown to speed up the process and to make runs of similar beakers.

We used plaster moulds: casting plaster with a small amount of a very hard plaster to strengthen it.

They were painted with a vegetable oil and graphite powder mix to act as a release agent, which then had to be sooted occasionally as the graphite wore thin.

For sooting the moulds, we used one of our reproduction 18th century tall open flame oil lamps, which was filled with vegetable oil.

Each vessel was turn-moulded to stop the appearance of the mould seams in the resulting beaker. Even with the release agent, the friction could be quite high, so controlling the blowing pressure whilst turning was important.

Then each vessel was sheared to the correct height and the rim opened out.