Glass and Glass Manufacture

by Percival Marson

The glass maker also uses another form of spring tool in taking hold of hot glass or pinching hot glass to form. These are the tongs.

The battledore, or palette, is a flat board of wood with a handle, used for flattening and trueing the bottoms of jugs or decanters, etc.

The chest knife is a flat bar of iron, usually an old file, used for knocking off the waste glass remaining on the blow-irons and pontils after use. A chest or iron box is kept for collecting such waste glass for further use. A pair of compasses, calipers, and a foot rule complete the glass maker’s outfit of tools.

Making a Wine-glass. The manipulations in the manufacture of a wine-glass will now be described. A common mule wine-glass is formed from three distinct pieces of glass: (a) the bowl; (b) the leg; (c) the foot.

A wine “shop,” or “chair,” consists of three men; a “workman,” whose main work consists of finishing the wine-glass; a “servitor,” who forms or shapes the bulb; a “foot maker,” who gathers and marvers the glass; and a boy who carries away and cleans the blow-irons.

The “footmaker” of the “chair” gathers on the end of a blowing-iron sufficient glass to form a bowl. This is then shaped on a marver until the required shape is obtained. The footmaker then blows this out to a hollow bulb similar in size to the pattern to which he is working. When the bulb leaves the footmaker it is the shape of the bowl of the wine-glass.

This is then handed over to the servitor, who drops a small piece of hot glass on to the end of the bulb, and heats the whole by holding it in the furnace. This serves to make the joint of the two pieces perfect. The servitor next proceeds to draw out the leg from the small piece of glass at the end of the bulb, leaving a button of glass at the end of the leg. The servitor then dips the end of the leg into the molten glass within the pot and gathers on sufficient glass to form a foot. He spreads this portion of the glass out to the required shape and size with a pair of wooden clappers, with which he squeezes the hot glass to form the foot.

The servitor has now done his part of the work, and the glass is handed to the workman. It is then cracked off, and the foot caught by a spring clip arrangement attached to a pontil, called a “gadget.” The workman now re-heats or melts the top edge of the glass by holding it within the furnace, and when it is hot he cuts off the surplus glass with a pair of shears. A line is chalked on at the correct distance from the foot, and guides the workman in cutting the glass to the proper height. He then melts the top again and opens it out with his spring tool to the required shape, after which the glass is taken to the annealing lehr by the boy, to be annealed.

Other forms of wine-glasses are made, and various methods are adopted, according to the district and class of workmen.

For instance, the method of making the above common mule wine-glass varies in different districts. Instead of gathering the metal for the foot upon the leg of the glass, the workman may drop a piece of hot glass, which has been gathered by the servitor, on to the button at the end of the leg, and by means of a pair of wood clappers spread the hot glass to form the foot.