About this bench

What this bench is

The Glass Bench is a trade reference on borosilicate glass pipes and the wholesale trade around them. It holds four stations. The Bench covers the material and the hand: borosilicate and its expansion, torch work, annealing, wall thickness, ground joints, and the checks a piece passes before it is packed. Forms and fittings is the catalogue of shapes and hardware, read one family at a time. The Crate covers wholesale practice: case packs and minimums, landed cost, packing glass for freight, breakage claims and terms. The Counter covers the retail floor: display, handling, cleaning, restock rhythm and the local rules a shop works within.

Who writes it

The desk of The Glass Bench writes every sheet. The desk reads supplier catalogues, glass and freight references, published standards and the trade literature, then states what those sources say. Every maker, kiln, courier, marketplace and shop is named in the third person. Photographs are images made for each sheet and captioned as views of the sheet.

How a sheet is made

A sheet begins with one question a buyer or a lampworker asks. The desk gathers sources, names each source it read, and answers in plain American English. Each sheet carries a reference number and the date it was last checked. When a source changes, the sheet is checked again and the date is updated.

How the numbers are used

Millimetres, grams, case counts and freight classes are quoted as the cited source gives them. Where two sources disagree, both figures are printed with their source named. Nothing in a sheet is a price this bench sets; a price is quoted only as a figure a named source published on a named date.