MAKING ANTIQUE GLASS

A ntique glass is handblown glass that can be made by two different ways: Muff method and Crown method Either way antique glass is unlike any other glass – because it is born from a bubble unencumbered by anything but the air around it, it is also produced by the highest skilled artists…..

W e will first look at creating antique glass using the Muff method which essentially takes the hot glass bubble and eventually shapes it into a cylinder which is cut open and flattened into a sheet….. The pictures you will see were taken in Germany at the Lambert’s factory…. muff method:

T he Lamberts factory floor in Germany.

T he raw materials of glass are mixed & metal oxides added for color. The "meltingmaster" knows all formulas to produce the desired colors. The batch is shoveled into the kiln and heated to well over 2700 degrees Fahrenheit. Samples were drawn from the kiln and the color checked….

E ach kiln has 4 teams. The glassmaker gathers the hot glass at the end of the blowpipe to start shaping it. In reality there is a team of glassmakers. In the "German" system the first person in the process is the gatherer who collects and shapes the first molten glass. Then the ball boy blows the first bubble and shapes it. The pipe is then passed to the servitor who further elongates the bubble before it is given to the master called the gaffer to finish the glass.

T he glassmaker uses a wet wood or metal mold to help shape the molten glass to the desired form

T he glassmaker continues to gather more glass & enlarge the bubble.

T he glass can only be worked for under a minute before it has to be reheated to be pliable.

T he hot bubble is swung and a mold used to shape it into a cylinder of appropriate size. As the cylinder gets bigger you must use a pit to be able to manipulate the hot cylinder properly and allow gravity to help…..

T he end of the molten glass cylinder is cut open, widened, and shaped. The cylinder is reheated many times.

A fter the cylinder is the exact shape, the end with the blowpipe is cut off. The cylinder is then annealed. A nnealing is a process of gradually cooling a hot glass object so it does not crack. The glass cylinder is placed in an annealing oven at about 1400 degrees. Depending on the glass thickness the temperature is reduced over the course of a day or more until it is at room temperature.

A fter the cylinders are annealed, they are scored inside with a glass cutter.

T he cylinders are eventually placed in a flattening oven where they break along the score & are flattened out.

A fter the glass has softened, flattened, and cooled it is removed and now is ready to be used!

T he crown method of making antique glass was probably the first method to be developed and was the method described by Theophilus…. click above to see a movie on crown glass production….

Y ou can create any color you want but there are other ‘things’ you can do to the glass to create different types of antique glass….. seedy flashed streaky reamy crackled roundels

RONDELS R ondels are technically antique glass since they are formed from a bubble which is flattened in a manner similar to crown glass but producing a much smaller disk…the center cut of a crown glass disk (where the punty mark is evident) is known as a bullion….. At first a small gather of glass is taken from the oven This will be blown, opened and spun into a rondel

DALLES D alles are NOT antique glass (antique glass is handblown or formed from a bubble). Dalles are thick glass that are hand cast…..At the left you can see molten glass taken out of the kiln and then poured into molds, then the cast dalles are put into the annealling oven (lehr). Dalles are used in making dalle de verre windows- a technique invented in the early 1900s

THE END