Glass and glass products are are created in a Glazier's Bench.
The first step in the creation of glass is heating Potash, Lime and Sand on the bench to form (normal) melted glass, or, alternatively, replacing the sand for white sand to form jeweled glass. Afterwards, melted glass can be worked to a number of different products, depending on the type of glass used; normal glass can be worked to:
Jeweled glass can be worked to:
Each item will consume one unit of melted glass, except a Glass Torch which consumes 5.
Note that a bench may only contain normal or jeweled glass. Since replacing the types required emptying the bench, an expansive process, it is usually preferred to maintain two seperate benches, one for each type of glass.
You can also use the Glory Hole now. The Glassblowing page can be used to talk about using this new technology.
A Glazier's Bench runs on Charcoal. The temperature of the bench (in degrees) is displayed in the window, and at any time you can choose to add 2, 6, or 12 charcoal.
Adding charcoal causes the bench to slowly heat over a changing period of time, usually around 100 seconds. These seconds are seperated into "ticks", with each tick taking about 10 seconds (10 TeppySeconds, to be precise). The more charcoal you add, the faster the temperature increases; once the peak is reached, the temperature will start decreasing rapidly. Waiting is the only way to cool the bench completely, and retrieve any final glass products. The exact amount of heating and cooling change from bench to bench.
Example: Adding two charcoal will increase the temperature by 7 degrees each tick, till a peak of 91 degrees is reached. Adding another two charcoal will slowly increase the temperature to 182 degrees, then the temperature will drop to 33 degrees, and after another tick the bench will cool.
If, during the heating-up phase, you add charcoal a second time, then the temperature of the bench will jump at the end of the heating-up phase. The jump depends on how much you waited before adding the second batch of charcoal. Adding more charcoal as soon as the temperature increases from the first batch will cause a dramatic increase when the first batch finishes increasing the temperature (reaches its "peak").
Example: Adding two charcoal will increase the temperature by 7 degrees. Adding two additional charcoal, the temperature increases on the next tick to 21 (7 from before and 7 for each two charcoal). It slowly increases to 175, the first batch finishes, the temperature jumps to 1130, increases to 1137, and the second batch finishes. The temperature starts decreasing, and after eleven ticks the bench cools completely.
As mentioned previously, there are two steps to glassmaking: getting melted glass, and shaping the glass to various products.
Melted glass requires a temperature of 3400 degrees for normal glass, and 4400 degrees for jeweled glass. You can choose how much melted glass to create (the bench can hold up to fifty units).
Once you have melted glass, and as long as you have at least 19 in the bench, you can create the various glass products at temperatures ranging from 1600 to 2400. If, during the creation of an item, the temperature moves behind these limits, the item is ruined, and the glass is lost.
Sheet glass takes 120 seconds and is difficult to make; if you fail, the sheet breaks and is lost. Success or failure is based on your Sheet Glass Fabrication skill which, like Stone Blade Fabrication, starts at 0 and can eventually go as high as 7. Your skill level has a chance of increasing every time you fail to make a sheet of glass, so it will take some time and materials to get your skill level above 0. At skill level 7, you will no longer randomly break sheets of glass. Though the amount is random, expect to make about 50 sheet glass (breaking 10-20) before attaining skill level 7.
To create a Mirror, your Sheet Glass Fabrication skill must be at level 7. You will need 1 Sheet Glass and 200 silver powder for each mirror, and you must keep the bench above 5000 for 10-30 seconds to ensure that the silver powder doesn't blow away, ruining the mirror. There is no upper limit to the temperature, so you may want to get the temperature much higher than that (just in case).
Note: The sheet glass you use for the mirror must be in your inventory, not in the bench.
This section deals with the precise mechanics of the Glazier's Bench. It is not required in order to operate it correctly.
"Tick" ... 10 TeppySeconds. A standard increment of time.
"Drop Mode" ... When the temperature of the bench is falling. This starts when there are no heat cycles in progress, and ends when a heat cycle starts. Unless interrupted, the temperature will fall by a value specific to that bench until it reaches zero.
"Drop value" or "DV" ... How far the temperature falls per tick, when the bench is in drop mode. Different between benches, but does not change.
"heat cycle" ... A heat cycle starts when you add charcoal, and lasts 10 ticks (=100 TeppySeconds). During that time, the temperature will rise for a certain number of ticks , then remain stable for the remainder of that cycle. Starting a new heat cycle does not cancel previous cycles, but causes a temperature spike as noted in the next section.
"Heat Value" or "HV" ... How much the temperature of the bench increases -total- over a heat cycle started by adding 2 charcoal. This value (and the amounts from 6 or 12 charcoal) vary per bench.
Every Glazier's Bench functions slightly differently, though it is not character-dependent, and the difference can be easily measured and accounted for.
The bench runs in heating cycles of 100 TeppySeconds, with a cycle starting each time you add charcoal. After adding charcoal, the temperature of the bench will rise a certain amount each 'tick' (10 TeppySeconds) for a certain number of ticks. The total amount by which the bench temperature rises after adding 2 charcoal is called 'HV' (Heat Value). This value is different for each bench.
If you do not add any more charcoal within 100 TeppySeconds after the last time you added charcoal, the temperature will start dropping a fixed amount every tick. This value is called 'DV' (Drop Value).
You can have multiple cycles going at once; the effects are added together. However, for any cycles that overlap, the temperature will jump at the end of the first cycle in proportion to the number of ticks remaining in any other cycles in progress. That is, if you add 2 charcoal, wait 1 tick, and then add another 2, the temperature jump will be far greater than if you waited 6 ticks. The actual amount of the jump is the overlap (in ticks) times the DV.
To calculate the HV and DV for your bench, add 2 charcoal, and record the temperature changes. For example, you may see the temperature increase as follows: 0, 14, 28, 42, 56, 0. You can't calculate DV from this, since it went straight to zero - the DV may have been greater than 56. But from this data, the HV of this bench would 56.
To get DV, get the bench temperature up to at least 400 or so, and then watch the temperature drop. For example, if you add 2 charcoal, wait 1 tick, and then add 2 more, you may get the following numbers (notice the jump): 0, 14, 42, 70, 98, 112, 1368, 1211, 1054, 897, 740, 583, ... In this case, the DV is 157.