Pilchuck Furnace Builders

Mid-way through the tear-down

Day 1 – Orientation & the Beginning of the Tear-Down

A group of eight Glassies has come together from all corners—three of us are North Americans living abroad, and the rest from super interesting places. What unites us is a shared desire to fully understand the inner workings of glass furnaces: combustion systems, wiring, programming, insulation—you name it. We’re here to learn, hands-on, and we're fortunate to have Fred Metz leading the charge.

The project is the full conversion of Pilchuck’s old 200lb Spiral Arts gas furnace (sitting in the annex for those of you who know Pilchuck) into an electric one. It’s a great machine and it’s getting a second life!

We all arrived on campus in the afternoon. After getting settled, we took a tour of the studios before gathering in the annex,. Fred walked us through the orientation, covering health and safety essentials—always the first step before any serious work. From there, we headed to the library, where Fred introduced us to a detailed 3D rendering of the furnace we will be constructing. It’s exciting to see the full vision early on.

After dinner, we regrouped in the annex and got straight to work. The tear-down began. I’m not entirely sure how old this furnace is—I’ll find out—but if I had to guess, I would say somewhere between 10 and 15 years old. It features an invested pot in a housing that clearly wasn’t designed with mid-life replacements in mind. Any serious maintenance means tearing the whole thing down, and that’s exactly what we started doing. We loosened bolts and removed panels, one by one. At the same time, a team of three tackled the piping and electrical wiring, while another group focused on dismantling the burner and flue. We worked for about three hours and managed to strip off the top insulation completely.

It was a solid first day: dusty and deeply satisfying. Tomorrow, we roll up our sleeves and dive into the technical heart of the build. Stay tuned.

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