2024-10-24 Wimberley Glass Works

 Our next tour was the Wimberley Glass Works located about five miles east of Wimberley on Highway 12.

You can actually watch the glass items being made. They have a small bleacher area just in front of where they work. It was very warm and even hotter where they were doing the actual blowing.

They were blowing pumpkins for the upcoming holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving. He started with a small blob of molten glass. He blew it a little larger and then began to shape it.

He had to insert it back into the furnace a couple of times to keep it hot enough to be elastic. The cone shaped containers with ridged sides in front contained some silvery color that added the grooves in the side of the pumpkin and emphasized them with the silvery color.

Before we got to this step, the master blower snapped of the part of the pumpkin that was attached to his blowing rod. Another blob of glass was attached to the top for the thick part of the stem and then he pulled it out into a long curlicue which was wrapped around the stem. This is his assistant who took the finished pumpkin from him and carried it over to the cooling over where it would take all night to gradually cool down.

Tim De Jong is the owner and head gaffer of the glassworks. He was born in Saskatchewan Canada and got a bachelor's degree in fine arts specializing in glass. He visited the Hill Country in 1991, fell in love with the area and opened the original glassworks the following year. In 2006, the glassworks was moved to a larger facility where they are currently.

There is a large show room out front where you can purchase all kinds of glass.

There are so many different kinds of items on display including wall art and jewelry.

It was very interesting and I definitely want to make another trip to see them creating something else.