The Rig
Building, converting and commissioning a vitrigraph kiln.
$17
Vitrigraph Institute
Set Up Your Vitrigraph Kiln and Pull Professional Stringer, Cane and Murrine
The complete step-by-step video course for kiln-glass artists ready to make their own components
Everything you need to set up a vitrigraph kiln, understand how glass flows, and pull clean stringer, coil, bulbs, twisted designs and murrine. Includes flower, ladybug, leaf, heart, three abstract and concentric-circle murrine patterns - components nobody sells online.
$37 one-time · Lifetime access · Instant access
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- 6 modules · 78 lessons
- ~70 minutes of instruction
- Printable firing reference (PDF)
- Built for the solo studio
The Problem
You already know how to fuse. That is not the problem.
You can run a full fuse. You know your COE. You have your schedules dialled in and a kiln that cost you real money.
And yet every piece you make is assembled from components that anyone can order online. The same stringer. The same frit. The same murrine, from the same three suppliers, at prices that make you wince every time you open the jar.
Meanwhile there is a box in the corner of your studio. Offcuts. Awkward triangles. The colours you bought and never loved. You cannot use it and you cannot bring yourself to throw it away.
That box is the raw material for the one technique that produces components nobody else can buy. It is called vitrigraph, and it turns your kiln into a small furnace that draws glass into a line you shape with your own hands.
How It Works
Three steps to your first pull
1
Enroll
One page, email only, no account to create. $37 one-time.
2
Watch
Six modules and the printable firing reference. Start the same minute.
3
Pull
Build the rig, run the schedule, and make your first pulls. Expect the first session to be practice.
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Glass Writing
The word comes from the Latin for glass and the Greek for writing
The method as glass artists know it today was formalised in 1993 at Bullseye Glass in Portland, during work by Narcissus Quagliata and Rudi Gritsch. A pot of compatible glass sits over a hole in the kiln floor, the glass softens, and gravity does the rest.
What you are really doing is writing with a molten line. The kiln sets the viscosity. Your hand sets the speed. Everything about the finished component follows from those two things working together.
Pull fast and the line goes thin. Pull slow and it goes thick. That variation is your signature. It cannot be bought and it cannot be copied.
What You Can Make
Five forms from one pot
01
Stringer
Fine fluid lines, thick or thin, wavy or straight, with deliberate variation along the length.
02
Cane
Heavier rods, often carrying a pattern through the core.
03
Coils
Wound around a steel pipe as the stream falls.
04
Bird's nests
Thin fast streams left to drop freely and collect into tangles.
05
Murrine
Patterned cross sections, sliced from a rod you built colour by colour.
Murrine is a four thousand year old technique, revived on Murano in the sixteenth century, and traditionally it requires a furnace, a glory hole and years of hot shop training. The vitrigraph gets you there from a kiln that plugs into a wall socket.
The Real Objection
It looks dangerous, and I work alone.
Let us be plain about it. The glass exits the pot at around 1700 degrees Fahrenheit. The hole it comes out of is above your head. Sessions run for hours, not minutes. And you are usually the only person in the building.
Every course, video and forum thread teaches you the pull. Almost none of them teach the person working alone how to set up so that nothing goes wrong in the first place. This one does, and it does it before it teaches you anything else.
Inside the safety module
- The four hazard categories and the countermeasure for each
- Why you glove your two hands differently
- Why didymium lenses and not sunglasses
- The burn protocol you should know before you need it
- A full cold rehearsal you run three times before firing
Not because the technique is reckless. Because you deserve to start it prepared instead of hopeful.
The Course
Vitrigraph Basics: Step by Step Guide
Six modules. Roughly seventy minutes of focused instruction, with no filler.
Origins, vocabulary and the glass physics that governs everything. Viscosity as a dial you control. Why colour changes behaviour and which glass is most forgiving for your first session. Compatibility discipline that prevents cracks appearing weeks later.
Kiln choice and the three routes to a working setup. The base board specification, twelve inches square, one inch thick, two and a half inch hole, and why you replace the floor rather than drill it. Pot supports, mounting height, structural tests, the pull zone, electrical requirements and a full commissioning checklist.
The four hazard categories. Eye protection. The asymmetric glove system. Dress code, ventilation, the tool kit, the burn protocol, fire readiness, session discipline, and the cold rehearsal.
Feedstock selection and why fine frit ruins a pull. Terra cotta versus stainless. Hole diameter as your primary control. The cover square trick. And the three loading strategies that decide whether you get stringer, solid cane or a murrine pattern.
The full schedule. Ramp rate, equalising hold, process temperature by colour. What you see during the wait and the mistake almost everyone makes. Recognising and grabbing the plug. Controlling thickness with your hand and flow with the kiln. Coils, curves, bird's nests, and how to close out a run.
Cooling and stress. Sorting, labelling and storing. Cutting and slicing murrine with consistency. Tack fuse versus full fuse. Bubble control, devitrification, and a complete troubleshooting map.
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Specifics
This course gives you figures, not encouragement
Most free content on this technique tells you to experiment. That is fine advice if you have unlimited pots, glass and electricity. Inside, you get the actual numbers.
- The process temperature window, 1500 to 1725 degrees Fahrenheit, and which colours flow at which point inside it
- The ramp rate and the equalising hold, with the reason for each
- Base board dimensions and hole diameter, and why the board hole is larger than the pot hole
- Pot hole range and what each size produces
- Mounting height, and how to set it for your own arm rather than copying a figure
- The temperature adjustment step size, and the lag before it takes effect
- The immediate brake when the flow runs away from you
Every number in this course comes from published manufacturer documentation and established studio practice, assembled in one place and in the order you actually need them.
- Teaching kiln-glass since 2009
- Vitrigraph pulls logged across three kiln models
- Method built on published manufacturer schedules
- Studio practice, not theory
This is for you if
- You own a kiln and you already fuse with confidence
- You are tired of work that looks like everyone else's
- You have a box of scrap you cannot use and cannot discard
- You want to make murrine without a hot shop
- You work alone and want to be properly prepared before you start
This is not for you if
- You have never fused glass and do not own a kiln
- You want a shortcut. This technique rewards patience and punishes rushing
- You want somebody else to guarantee your first pull will be beautiful. It will not be, and the course says so plainly
What changes
You stop ordering components and start making them.
The box of scrap becomes your palette.
Your work develops a line quality that is recognisably yours, because it came out of your hand at the moment the glass was moving.
And the next time somebody at a fair picks up your piece and asks where you bought that murrine, the answer is that you did not buy it.
Lifetime Access
Vitrigraph Basics: Step by Step Guide
- All six video modules, 78 lessons
- Firing schedules and temperature reference
- Rig build specifications
- Safety checklist and cold rehearsal protocol
- Troubleshooting map
- Session log template
- Lifetime access, including future updates
$37
One-time payment · Lifetime access · Instant access
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The 30-day, no-questions guarantee
Watch the whole thing. Build the rig. Run a session. If it has not given you a technique you can repeat, tell us within 30 days and we refund you in full. You keep the notes.
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Companion Guides
Just want the Guides?
Each deep-dive guide is available on its own. Instant download, one-time payment.
Murrine
Designing, loading and slicing patterned cane.
$17
Schedules and Repeatability
Firing numbers, flow control and defect diagnosis.
$17
Questions
Before you buy
Free videos show you a pull. They do not give you the process window, the ramp rate, the equalising hold, the pot hole sizes or the mounting height. One ruined pot of glass and one wasted kiln firing costs more than this course.
Minimum spec: a small top-loading or bell kiln that reaches 1750°F, with at least 8 inches of interior height above the pot and a floor you can replace with a 12 x 12 x 1 inch board. Purpose-built vitrigraph kilns exist, but Module 2 covers converting a kiln you may already own, and names the models not to use.
No drilling. The method replaces the kiln floor with an inexpensive removable board rather than modifying the kiln body, so the kiln goes back to normal fusing work the same day.
Module 3 is written for exactly that situation. PPE list: didymium lenses, an asymmetric two-glove system, cotton or leather sleeves, closed shoes, no synthetics. Plus ventilation, the burn protocol, fire readiness and a cold rehearsal you run three times before you ever fire.
If you can run a full fuse and know your COE, you have the prerequisite. Everything else is taught from zero, in order, with the safety setup first.
Compatible scrap you almost certainly already own, and both 90 and 96 work - the technique is compatibility agnostic. What matters is that everything in one pot comes from one tested family. Module 4 covers what works, what does not, and why fine frit ruins a pull.
Your first session produces material you throw away, and the course says so plainly. Most people get lines they want to keep in their second or third session.
Lifetime access, including future updates. The video streams on phone, tablet and desktop, and the reference sheets are printable PDFs.
30 days, no questions beyond having actually watched it. Email us and we refund in full - you keep the reference material.
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Not ready to buy yet?
Get the free one-page firing-temperature cheat sheet: the process window, ramp rate and equalising hold, in the order you use them.
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The box of scrap is not going to use itself
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