Our beloved Jan and Tino brought over the last of the custom fabricated steel equipment on Friday and hauled it into place with Jeremy. Thankfully Jan’s shop, Metconix, is only down the driveway… how convenient! He has done a fantastic job throughout this endeavor. Beacon is home to so many talented and industrious people!
Jan, Jeremy, Tino, and Jonathan face a VERY HEAVY piece of metal
During the sample sale Adam and the team dove into the new studio and worked their very first shift. The glass was in great shape! We had to tear Adam away when the day was over. He can’t wait to be up here working full time at the new shop with the rest of our fabulous team. Saturday was a tremendous day of achievement for our little Niche Modern family.
Lead glass blower Adam Holtzinger at work in Beacon last weekend
A common question at the office here at Niche Modern is: How many pieces made it into the box today? The “box” refers to our annealers and we’ve struggled from the very beginning with limited annealer space dictating how productive we can be. So this wall of giant annealers is an amazing feeling of abundance for all of us as it represents the wide open future of possibilities at the new studio. They’re even bigger in person!
Three annealears have been positioned within the hot shop, ready for action
We heard the truck rumbling around the bend and Jeremy went to grab the forklift in a hurry. The last of the equipment for our glass studio came yesterday and today the crew is already hard at work getting it connected. John Chiles from Hub Consolidated built our equipment over the summer and he is down from Vermont today to help us get it up and running.
Hardware including Annealers, and a Glory Hole are the final piece of the puzzle
After a few grueling nights tending to the new furnace, (which is just like feeding a newborn baby!) Jonathan, our studio manager, had a moment to pass through the shop and take it all in. This is a great shot of the calm before the storm, which we’re enduring today, as the electricians, plumbers and construction crews work in tandem to get the place up and running – just in time for our Niche Modern Sample Sale! We need a vacation… but we’re too excited to relax just yet.
Jonathan, our studio technician, walks through the new hot shop
We have been privileged to work with the very best plumbers and electricians in the Hudson Valley region for this project and if they’re still speaking to us when the renovation is complete we’re going to throw them a party! The whole team was working hard with Jeremy, Zach and Jonathan yesterday to get the new glass furnace hooked up. Central Hudson is here doing an inspection today. We hope to be embarking on our very first glass melt shortly!
Local electricians and plumbers preparing the furnace for activation
Jeremy, Zach and our amazing team of plumbers and electricians have been working hard all week to get the new 1,000 lbs furnace installed and hooked up to our gas lines at the future Niche Modern Glass Studio. This is a great perspective shot taken from the mezzanine at the end of a long day. The space is coming together and starting to feel like a real live glass studio!
The new furnace means longer days spent piecing together the puzzle
After many months of furious preparations and dust, sweat and tears, the hood room is finished and now the new Niche Modern glass furnace is in place waiting to be fired up! Work is being done as I write this actually – with our technicians, electricians, plumbers and the fine folks at Central Hudson. We are hoping to fire up very soon. We’ll be posting an update shortly! Fingers crossed…
Our 1000lb Wetdog glass furnace awaits setup before firing it up!
Last week our 1,000 lbs furnace shipped from our friends at Wetdog and arrived at the future Niche Modern glass studio! Hooray! Getting it off the truck was a bit like coaxing an elephant into the circus ring and in fact, the pallet jack that Jeremy ordered especially for this day is rated for something as heavy as an elephant. It’s a good thing he had it on hand so we could wiggle the furnace into place. All week long Zach is visiting from North Carolina to help us get it up and running. We’re very close now!
The glass furnace soon to be responsible for Niche Modern pendants!
Equipment for the future Niche Modern glass studio has begun to arrive and is being kept safe, along the side of one of the factory walls, so as not to interfere with the final renovation work. We’re hoping the gas lines will be run by the very end of August so we can light up the new furnace by early September! Then we’ll be cookin’ at last!
A glory hole rests quietly toward the rear of the hot shop