Carl Nordbruch Arrives in Sittingbourne

Carl Nordbruch, our glassblower for the last 20 years is now blowing glass at Wilkinson’s new glasshouse in Sittingbourne, Kent.

Carl has over 30 years experience in the glass industry.

Carl started his career at the Isle of White glass in 1987 before he went on to teach as a technical demonstrator at Wolverhampton University.

Within a couple of years he decided to study for a masters degree at the Royal College of Art London, following on from this he began to blow glass at his own premises and for a short period working with Neil Wilkin before he then opened ‘The Glassblowers’ on the Isle of Wight.

Throughout Carl’s career he has been involved in many various solo and joint exhibitions and private and national collections including the V&A. We are very excited to have him and his colleague Peter here with us to continue to have all of the wonderful hand blown glass they produce for our chandeliers, fittings, reproductions and repairs.

The building of the furnace

The building of the furnace began in early May, starting with a steel pallet to build the furnace on top of. They then built up the 800 insulating bricks and cast the floor, walls, openings and roof, finishing with the last 50mm of outer insulation and steel frame. The whole thing will weigh about two and a half tonnes when it is finished.

The crucible pot that holds 250 kilos of molten lead crystal weighs 165 kilos on its own. New gas pipes were fitted to power the gas burner which will heat the furnace up to 1140 degrees centigrade.

On 21st July, after many months of waiting, the gas was connected. It took a week for the glass to get up to the required temperature and then finally Carl was then able to blow our first pieces of glass with his skilful assistant Peter.

To find out more about Wilkinson and to discover some of the chandeliers created by Carl Nordbruch and Peter at our glasshouse in Sittingbourne, browse our range of chandeliers in stock.