Prior to any use of the Canberra Glassworks facilities and equipment artists will need to:

• provide a certificate of insurance with a minimum of public liability insurance up to $20,000,000
• sign a Canberra Glassworks’ User’s Agreement
• agree to the Canberra Glassworks’ Workshop Regulations
• be inducted into each area and each piece of equipment being hired

Cancellation Policy

Hotshop cancellations will incur a 50% cancellation fee if they happen within 24 hours before the
session’s start time. Session changes can be coordinated with Artistic Programs. A cancellation fee
will not be charged if reasons for cancelation are related to Covid-19/isolating. To cancel a session
please email Artistic Programs.

Refunds are decided on a case-by-case basis and in accordance with the Canberra Glassworks
Users Agreement. Refunds will take 5 working days to process.

Sessions

The Hotshop is open Wednesday through to Sunday, with two sessions bookable daily. There is an evening session bookable on Thursdays. See times scheduled below.

	AM Session	PM Session	EVE session
WED	8am – 12pm	12.30pm – 4pm
THU	8am – 12pm	12.30pm-4pm	5pm-8pm
FRI	8am – 12pm	12.30pm-4pm
SAT	8am – 12pm	12.30pm-4pm
SUN	8am – 12pm	12.30pm-4pm

Hotshop Facilities

Glassworks has a 450kg tank furnace which melts clear glass only. We have a 100kg pot furnace, which is available to users to hire to melt colour for casting and blowing.

In both furnaces we melt Gaffer batch.

There is a range of equipment and tools available in the studio to use during sessions. These include pastorelli and forks, optic moulds, blocks and paddles, hand torch and oxy/crack off torch, powder booth, two colour boxes, and various hand tools. Pick up ovens are available for hire for graals etc., however please contact Artistic Programs at least a day before you require the pick-up oven to book it.

Glass and Annealer Usage

15kg glass is allocated per session with all Glory Hole bookings. Extra glass can be booked per kilo online or through Artistic Programs.  Hirers are allocated half an annealer to each session booked, for an overnight annealing cycle (if a morning and an afternoon session is booked on the same day, the hirer will have the use of one whole annealer for the sessions). If extra annealer space is required large annealer #10 and #11 can

Sandcasting

Our sandcasting process uses olivine sand premixed with bentonite. 100kg is available in the pot furnace for sandcasting projects. This amount includes skins. It is $1300 to hire the pot for sandcasting.

Sandcasting is available Tuesday to Sunday, however it must be booked with Artistic Programs to avoid clashing with glassblowing.

Equipment and tools available for Sandcasting include a wide selection of sand boxes, two small ladles (11cm), 2 medium ladles (15cm), two large ladles (20cm), sandcasting paddles/boards, gloves, two shears, tweezers, acetylene torch, trolleys, marvers.
A 65-hour annealing cycle is included in this booking. Additional annealing space will need to be booked on top of this.

Glory holes are not included in sandcasting/pot bookings and will need to be booked separately.

Furnace glass made at Canberra Glassworks is subject to a range of variables which have subtle and at times profound impact on the quality of the glass available in the hiring program.

Poor glass quality is glass that is unusable due to heavy chords or striations in the glass, a level of seed that makes the glass too foggy, or a high level of snots in the glass.

If the glass quality is noticeably poor at any time, the technical staff should be informed immediately of the problem. The quality of the furnace glass is monitored on a weekly basis.

In the event of poor glass quality the Canberra Glassworks’ technical staff will assess the situation and take appropriate steps to restore the quality of the glass. Changes to the equipment will only be made in minor increments to achieve understandable results.

Under normal furnace conditions the glass may have slight cords or imperfections that may not compromise the workability of the glass. In these instances CGW expects that the glass is still usable. In addition it is understood that some cords or bubbles are created during normal use of the furnace.

The hirer can negotiate to cancel a session due to poor glass quality under the guidelines of CGW’s Cancellations and Refunds Procedure 2020.