Glass Cutting - Soldering - Leading - Glass Creation/Selection - Tools
Supplies/Equipment - Puttying- Misc
Glass Creation and Selection:
The main component of glass is quartz sand.
Alone it has too high a melting point so other materials are
added. These are soda, lime and potash. At this point the mixture,
melted at a very high temperature, is clear. Metal compounds
are added to create various colors.
There are two major divisions of glass according
to the method of manufacture. They are Antique or blown glass
and rolled glass.
Antique glass
is so called because it is the method used to make glass since
the Middle Ages. Through several steps, a long cylinder is blown,
the ends opened up and the cylinder is then scored with a cutter
down the side. The piece is then reheated in a furnace and the
cylinder opened and flattened out creating a sheet of glass which
is then gradually cooled in order to anneal the glass. Antique
glass is usually varying slightly in thickness and has happy
accidents such as varying sized bubbles and other irregularities
which addd interest to the glass. Normally antique glass will
have striations on the surface which adds life to the glass making
it vibrant in natural light.
Flashed glass is a varient of blown glass
that has had the gather -which would be a pale tint or clear-
dipped into molten glass of a darker color. The resultant sheet
will have a paper-thin layer of color (the flash side) on a thicker
base (the clear or pale tint side). Flashed glass can be sandblasted
or acid etched on the flash side removing the color and exposing
the base creating a complex design in a simply shaped piece of
glass. This was especially helpful back in the early Middle Ages
before the invention of glass cutters.
GNA or FNA (German or French
New or Near Antique) glass is made in the
Vertical Draw Method. Molten glass is pulled vertically through
a slit in a refractory block that's floating on the molten glass.
The annealing lehr is mounted vertically over the draw chamber.
This glass is ment to simulate antique glass. There are striations
on the surface that are mechanically imparted to the glass. There
are no bubbles in the glass normally. The limitation to GNA/FNA
glass is the limited color range. The are about 25 colors of
GNA glass (none of which are "hot" colors) but hundreds
of shades of full antique glass. Return
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Rolled glass
is made by putting molten glass in a hopper that feeds into a
pair of rollers. As the flatten the glass comes out the rollers
it is laid on a tray moving forward under the rollers at the
same rate as the glass is comes through the rollers. (Picture)
The sheet is then placed into an annealing lehr. If the bottom
roller has a pattern on its surface, the negative of that pattern
will be transfered to the bottom side of the rolled glass. One
side of the glass is always kept smooth for the glass cutting
wheel to be able to roll and score the glass. Exceptions would
be drapery glass or Job glass which need to be cut with a glass
cutting saw.
I divide rolled glass into a couple of classifications
based on how the light is transmitted through the glass. I define
cathedral glass as rolled glass that needs light coming through
the glass to your eye in order to be able to readily see the
color of the glass. At the other end of the scale is opalescent
glass which is more opaque than cathedral. It not only glows
with transmitted light but also shows color from reflected light.
There are many degrees of variation between one extreme and the
other resulting is varying degrees of wispy glass.
In selecting glass,
I try to avoid having all the glass in a panel be opalescent.
I want to maintain a greater feeling of transparency and avoid
having your eye stop at the plane of the glass. I try to avoid
having the panel look like a wall painting. I want the fact that
the panel is made of glass to be obvious. Therefore if I'm using
opalescent glass I confine it to areas that would be best represented
by a more solid feel such as mountains, plants, the main design
in a geometric design or a border. The more ethereal parts of
the panel I would use non-opalescent glass. These would includes
areas representing sky, water, background and so forth. An instance
where all glass should be opalescent would be in the case of
a lampshade. You should try to avoid having "hot spots"
where the bulb would show through. Other than that, have fun.Return to top: