Gather: Each time the glass blower gets glass from the furnace it is called a "gather". Between each gather the glass is blown, cooled, reheated, shaped, etc. until the artist is satisfied and then he will take another gather of glass to encase what he was just working on. The total number of gathers will determine the final size of the piece.

Cold work: After the hand blown glass object has cooled and is removed from the annealer, there is a still lot of work to be done on it. There will be a mark on the bottom of the piece where it was broken away from the pontil.

These marks are polished out using a series of diamond disks of different grits cooled off with water.