If you think you were having a tough time beating the heat yesterday, try being Ryan Flynn or one of his fellow craftsmen sweating their way through a day’s work alongside an open oven at NovaScotian Crystal.
“The furnace temperature while we work is about 1,300 degrees Celsius, so it’s definitely going to make the room warmer, without a question,” Flynn, 30, said while taking a brief break from his duties inside the glassworks studio nestled on the Halifax waterfront.
“It’s a long, wet day,” he said.
But the Dartmouth man said the high temperatures inside the glassworks, described on the NovaScotian Crystal website as “the hottest show in town” and “a tightly choreographed dance in the ballroom of hell,” is a small price to pay to do the work he loves.
“To be able to create from molten lava crystal to a nice wine glass, it’s good bragging rights,” he said.
To deal with the heat, Flynn said he drinks a lot of water, tries to work near a fan and prepares himself to simply “suck it up.”
Ioan Florean of Hatchet Lake said craftsmen quickly “get used to the heat,” adding cracking jokes with co-workers helps make it more bearable.
Anthony Tebay of Clayton Park said going for “a nice, cool beer” after work at one of the many nearby pubs tends to provide pretty good motivation, too.
Environment Canada meteorologist Bob Robichaud said Wednesday will bring temperatures similar to Tuesday, with an expected high of close to 30 degrees at Halifax Stanfield International Airport.
