The Secret Of Ancient Roman Glass Blowing!

How was glass made 3500 years ago? I take a deep dive and attempt to achieve this ancient art of glassmaking using only a wood-fired furnace.

▾ Our Camera Gear: ▾

▼ Send Us Some Mail ▼
How to Make Everything
PO Box 14104
St. Paul, MN 55114-1802

▼ Special Thanks to our Patrons at $15+ per month ▼
Ted L, Dominik S., Bryce Suchy, Potato, James Daniels, Edward Unthank, Steven Stowe, Dave Jones, dangerimp ., Kat PH, Emerson Propst, Jonathan Krailler, Jason Resha, Nathan Losee, Kyle Lauritzen, Jake Carpenter, Stray_Sparks, Craftsta64, Victoria Eads, Jeffrey Luck, Arishaig, Ian Miller, Kevin Shuttic, Erik Språng, Lee Schnee, Iain Bailey, alex latzko, Stephen DeCubellis, Adrian Noland, Tiffany Bennett, Estoky Designs, David George, Emmanuel Fillers, Benjamin Maitland, Larry Ullman, Dylan Rich, Jason Kaczmarsky, Jason Lewis, Andrew Nichols, Susan M. George, and Daniel Laux

▼ Credits ▼
Created and Hosted by Andy George
HTME Team: Theo Melchior and Elliot Krueger
Primary Editing by Emerson Rice

[jamescrowson]

I was a professional glass blower for 15 years. Glass is incredibly complicated. Getting quality glass from raw batch is a real craft. Thanks for the video and thanks for the tenacity!

[Mateus_Longo]

The taller your chimney is, the stronger the pressure diference it creates when you heat it up. So if you think you need more airflow to make your wood burn more cleanly, make the chimney taller. Hope this helps. Good luck!

[someoneudontknow]

You know, considering how much focus there is on ancient kilns and furnaces a collab with primitive technologies would be great

[jono]

Hey you actually managed to go from raw ingredients to aqua glass in one.
Huge step forward. Can't wait to see the next one.

[Tyrchon]

Glad to see that you made it out here to the Corning Museum of Glass. It is one of the best hidden gems here in Upstate NY and a great source for information on the history of glass and glass-work. For those who are curious about glass making and would like to try it, the museum also offers classes where you can get similar hands-on lessons as well as make various glass crafts. I've personally gone several times and made my own wine glasses, glass pumpkin decorations, glass snowmen, and even Christmas ornaments to gift to friends and family.

[chrisbolland]

This is what success looks like. Tiny iterations working toward victory, and even here when you've actually DONE IT, it still sin't going to feel very satisfying because it's not perfect. Keep going and see if you can't achieve optical quality glass, but failing that, the stuff you made looks up tot he caliber of the ancients, and that is no small feat. Well done.

[andrewpaedia]

Your consistent effort to create clear glass throughout all these years is really, really inspiring!

[drewharrison]

Andy is always so serious about these projects. They joke around a bit but the shear joy on his face at 28:29 is a rare treat. Thanks.

[eggyparrot]

I've seen a design for a high temp clay furnace like this that basically use an insulated double wall. There is an inner chamber for the fire and crucible, and an outer shell with a few inches of gap between them. The gap is then filled with loosely packed white ash from previous fires. The small air pockets in the fine powder and high temperature tolerance make an insulation that is high performing for something so primitive

[kaitlyn__L]

The part about how glass goes from brown, to amber, to green, to blue absolutely blew my mind! I’ve seen all these kinds of glass all my life but had no idea what made them happen, and now this even makes sense as to why so many beer and wine bottles are dark brown — no reducing agent to make it clear!

[Zelmel]

The Corning Museum of Glass is a surprisingly awesome place. You might think it would be a "cool for 20 minutes and then you've seen it" thing, but it's at least a full day experience. Lots of cool stuff there, not to mention the classes and such.

[VarenRoth]

This is probably my favorite video you've made so far, it really shows the fruits of butting your heads together with other people to come up with a solution as they did in older times. It's always about finding the best way to make things easier when it comes to projects like these, isn't it? I loved how just moving a bunch of rocks in the right shape gave you a better result than what you had with a modern tool blowing air in, a great example of working hard vs smart!

[fraserbuilds]

Really amazing dedication as always from this channel! You probably heard about them at the Corning Museum, but early blow torches invented during the Renaissance made working glass way easier and way more fuel-efficient. I have a few videos on my channel of my reproductions of those blow torches if youre interested. they were used for making all sorts of things from chemistry equipment to the first microscopes and can be really incredibly powerful.

[Rosiepedia]

Would love to see you making some moulded glass items like those in the museum as the step before blown glass as well!

[ThomasthEEngineR]

I have loved following this channel through the years. Keep it up Andy!

[redjonglop]

So hyped to see saveitforparts on here! Great to have more Minnesota peeps get a highlight

[kzhd]

The Corning Museum is a wonder! My wife and I spent almost a week there and didn't see everything. We did come away with a couple of glass bowls that we saw being made by the glass artists. Your technical deep dive into the process is very illuminating, and I really admire your dedication and determination in the videos. And you did some quite good first efforts at making decorative objects in clear glass.

[Hilqy]

A completely unexpected Collab lol love save it for part's content, very interesting to learn how satellite data works

[kiarakeeper]

I love that your reaching out more to experts in the fields of the things your trying to make. You've done it before but it's Really awesome to see. And to really learn about the history from people with real experience

[Becker_]

Oh shit he’s back! Haven’t watched in a couple of years but love all the content I’ve seen! Can’t wait to binge and catch up