[onesweetjedi]

I have recently had an encounter where someone felt my little basic lampwork bead class was being held in an unsafe manner.

I was hoping I could get some input from the community if these would be considered "BAD THINGS"

1. No small cup of water in a non plastic container in order to dunk a bead gone bad.

My response
I tend to pull a failed bead off with pliers, its usually really easy and I just drop it to cool on the metal sheathing on the bench where my torch is clamped.

2. Allowing participants to be seated in line with glass that could have sent shards flying at them.

My response
I get what they are saying, but the safety person wanted them 8-10' away, to the point that is almost impossible for students to see. From my experience a rod fragment rarely travels more than a foot or two, 3-4' should be fine. The vast majority in my experience seem to just crack and fall off on the bench in front of the torch. Is 8'+ really reasonable?

3. using tools in the flame.

My response
I had never heard of this as a safety issue, is poking at a lopsided bead with a probe while still in the flame a bad thing? if you touch a bead with a tool it gets unholy hot in a hurry anyway.

4. Warming up a rod of glass by going into the flame with the glass pointing to the left or right rather than pointing straight out in front of the artist.

my response
I had never seen this stabbing the cane into the flame from behind, it seems like a perfectly valid way, but I dont like it as it makes it hard to see how much the tip is heating and sometimes I can see a little crack or two developing near the tip thus back off the heat a bit to try and let it heat up and melt without further cracking/losing the tip of the cane. I have seen countless videos using the same technique swirling the rod through the flame from the side.

More than happy to accept constructive criticism I want to continue my class, just curious if I a missing some common safety concept being mostly self taught several of these things are exactly how I was taught by a teacher from the same organization. The numbered items are copied directly from the email I received.

What I am kinda hoping for here is for each item is this more a matter of work style/preference/opinion or am I breaking some hard fast safety rule. I have taught dozens of people without incident and now someone has a bee in their bonnet that I need to be stopped before I kill someone.

I submit myself to the lampworking community for judgement prepared to take my lumps if I am wrong.

Thank you very much