flat grinder plans

[Bill Zarvis]

does anyone have the HIS GLASSWORKS flat lap plans. Not just the link...it doesn't work.

thanks

[Pete VanderLaan]

what you really need are the drawings John Nickerson did for the hot glass information exchange. The drawings are plain as day and rugged.

[Rick Wilton]

I have them, send me an email and I'll send them to you.

[Rick Wilton]

I uploaded them to here
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EF...zJ7klRmZxrETJD

[Pete VanderLaan]

If anyone can upload Nickerson's, they're just wonderful. It includes the cork and felt as well.

[Max Epstein]

I'll upload thr HIS plans if I can find the damn thing.

[Greg Vriethoff]

Here's the Nickerson plans from Hot Glass Exchange. There may be some non-relevant, and/or redundant information.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/muosib1p7...dQGkzo8ea?dl=0

[Pete VanderLaan]

Thank you Greg. I just really view the Nickerson machine as superior in design and the drawings make it so easy. Mine are all done with that iriginal design and I love them. They are a bit bigger, with heads up to 38 inch diameter which were 1.5 inch think when new and weighed in at about four hundred pounds, just for the heads.

Solid, really solid.

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Greg Vriethoff

Here's the Nickerson plans from Hot Glass Exchange. There may be some non-relevant, and/or redundant information ...

One of those drawings has the address of the long-since closed Stained Glass gallery in Boulder. What's the relation to "John Nickerson" and who is he?

[Pete VanderLaan]

Well, it was published in 1978 after all. The references I have in Glassnote's IV are mostly useless as well. It came out in '04.

John Nickerson, Nick to many of us was a designer at Blenko for a time but his best work was doing the full body maquettes for Chevrolet on cars. Nick was a participant at John Bingham's shop in Boulder and did some really interesting design work almost all in clear. Financially it was never successful.

The Rockies really became the hotbed of beveling, grinding and polishing in the mid '70's. Between Boulder and Santa Fe, it became a focal point of tooling and compounds for polishing stuff. Bingham and I were travelling the southwest buying up old Lang and Somaca machines at fifty bucks a pop and refurbishing them . James Clark had one of the refurbished shops and I believe it's still for sale today in Boulder. I have two of the horizontal grinders in my shop today. They're just indestructible, never vibrate and feel like a big tool should feel. Nick did all of these drawings for the Hot Glass Information Exchange which is currently in it's fourth printing with some modifications to the cover. The cover art is Nick at his best running a glass bench entirely from a hand held controller. We were big on pneumatics as well.
Bingham, Hnery Summa and I never intended to profit from the papers submitted to the boulder conference but it kept selling out and we kept reprinting. Finally, we bought a flu gas analyzer for the three studios to share and gave printing rights to the Rakow library at the Corning museum along with all of the profits from its sales. The Rakow bought it's first computer with those funds and catalogued the collection, something of which I'm still exceptionally proud. Unfortunately, they turned printing over to Elizabeth Whitehouse who utterly butchered the book, particularly the cover but she just xeroxed the damn thing. It lay unattended for years but Joe Pfieffer of Igneous Glass bought the rights to reprint it and it is out there for sale. It's a collection of papers submitted to us as the cost of admission to the first glass conference totally focused on technical issues. The Schools panned it but of course the schools hated the independent shops which were springing up everywhere in the '70's.

Nick is now in his late seventies living in Ashville NC. He stopped making glass and returned to pottery, a great love of his. Nick divided people in the world into two simple groups. People who can draw and people who can't. A favorite of mine.

[Paul Thompson]

It's too bad Colorado lost it's connection to glass. There's a few warm and hotshops around, but it's kind of a glass desert. I've been trying to convince the wife we ought to look at, coincidentally, Ashville.

[Pete VanderLaan]

John B moved to Sri Lanka, Nick to Asheville, Maytum and Clark just stopped. Kit Karbler was still there. Joan Reep stopped and all of us are growing old. The opportunities we once had dried up.
In its Hayday, Santa Fe had 17 hotshops. I remember when I was the only one in the rockies period. There are a lot of fusing shops in NM.

[Greg Vriethoff]

Originally Posted by Paul Thompson

It's too bad Colorado lost it's connection to glass. There's a few warm and hotshops around, but it's kind of a glass desert. I've been trying to convince the wife we ought to look at, coincidentally, Ashville.

I've been to Asheville on several occasions since moving to NC. I've been to the two major shops in the area, and both are markedly different in their approach.
North Carolina Glass Center is a public access shop and gallery. They teach classes, and rent time. You can sell work in the gallery, but I think there's a wait list. It's a small space too. Lexington Glassworks is a private studio that caters more to the tourist crowd. They only use the shop to make their own work for the gallery and commissions. No classes. No rental. All there is to do is stand around and drink beer and buy stuff. The owners are nice enough, but they've made it clear that they don't want to have anything to do with me. If you do decide to move there and set up shop, don't expect a warm welcome. There's another private studio that's a little jog out of town proper, but they were closed the last time I came to town.

[Pete VanderLaan]

well, Victor is certainly there and a great talent. He's also quite diverse in his approach to self employment. I don't think he allows outside work but I might be wrong about that.

[Greg Vriethoff]

Victor is close by. He's still a 30 minute drive from Asheville proper. There are several artists around Asheville and the Penland area that I would like to visit. I'm going to have to plan a trip for myself around that. Dragging my wife out to yet another glass blowing shop is not a way to spend a weekend together.

[Greg Vriethoff]

Touring the Moog Factory was fun.

[Marty Kremer]

Rob Levin's not far. Neat work, fabulous teacher.

[Marty Kremer]

Haiku

Rob Levin's not far.
Neat work, fabulous teacher.
Say hello for me.

[Rich Samuel]

Originally Posted by Greg Vriethoff

Touring the Moog Factory was fun.

That's so cool! I was a TV-R major my freshman year at Ithaca College, and Bob Moog was often seen around the department. (He was a Cornell grad, but IC had all the latest tech stuff (circa 1969) thanks to its relationship with CBS.) He wasn't very sociable, but he would occasionally let students try out prototype synthesizers.

[Pete VanderLaan]

Originally Posted by Marty Kremer

Rob Levin's not far. Neat work, fabulous teacher.

***
Well, Penland isn't that far and it's certainly chock full of good glass workers.

[Eben Horton]

Originally Posted by Marty Kremer

Haiku

Rob Levin's not far.
Neat work, fabulous teacher.
Say hello for me.

I took my first ever class with Rob at ape land in 1992. He was a great teacher..