San Francisco is a great place to blow glass, except...

No, I don't look too happy pulling cane because it's probably about 95F degrees in the studio.  

San Francisco is normally a great place to blow glass since it's relatively windy, cool and dry.  However, there are usually around 5 days a year where the weather is actually hot (at least for SF standards) and while those are perfect days to go biking, they stink for blowing glass.  This day in the studio I needed to pull a ton of cane for some planned reticello work (the net-like pattern with white stripes).  The glass I'm stretching here has a white stripe running through the very center of it and after I set up the pull I'll hand off one of the pipes I'm holding to an assistant and I'll walk down the hall in the studio, stretching this molten glass about 30 feet.  The finished rod is perfectly cyindrical and has a thin thread of white running down the center.  You can see the whole process in the photos in: Making Cane

Pulling cane is normally much easier physically than making large work but on a super hot day in the shop it can also be pretty grueling.  The cold beer at the end of this day was extra good :)