RED Matthews
Posts: 2396
Joined: 8/2/2008
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Well Road Dog; That is quite a pattern of something beyond the Cold Mold Ripple that I wrote a blog about. A cold mold cavity causes the glass parison to not make uniform thickness when it is blown against the mold cavity surface. This variation in thickness is what we see and many books and people call it whittle.
Earlier iron molds were made from cast iron poured against a wooden pattern form, for the mold cavity formation in the casting process. This iron was similar to a Class 30 Cast Iron and had a Type A (Y shaped) carbon formation. In 1866 at a pressed glass factory in Wheeling W.Va.; two men Michael Sweeney and J.E.Mathews patented the idea of following the principle that was used for making plow points of a chilled iron to increase the wear resistance - to their making of the iron press molds for better glass release from the patterned molds used for pressware. So they tried the process and from reading their patent over, I doubt that they even knew about how it changed the graphite formation in the iron from Type A to Type D. Type D is a dendritic type of graphite that formed itself in the iron in straight lines of graphite nodules in the iron that radiated off the cast iron chill that was laid in the sand and had the molten iron flow over it when the half mold casting was made.
They realized that they got a better polish in the iron decorations because of the improved iron tightness and got a better looking luster on the surface of the glass; but I doubt if they even realized that the glass looked better because the chilling of the iron changed the rate of heat transfer in the mold metal. This concept grew and was finally into the glass bottle mold castings in just a few years, which I identified by my collection of the SARATOGA Mineral Water Bottles.
I read about this patent in the book Early American Glass by Rhea Mansfield Knittle, after about fifteen years of searching after I went to work at Thatcher Glass and asked the question at a corporation meeting and no one could tell us anything.
I have seen the ripple in different directions both horizontal and vertical; but not like yours. I don't have a clue about what makes the ripple go in the different directions either. But the anomalies of marks on and in the glass keep me occupied anyway.
I decided to point out to you and the others, that for years they used to put a solid gather of the molten glass (metal) into their molds to let the solid chuck of hot glass pre-heat the molds to let them make better looking bottles. These solid bottles were thrown away because they couldn't be used as cullet for remelt. They have found a lot of them in the South Jersey glasshouse trash piles. I just haven't gotten one yet for my own collection.
I would like to use your picture in a blog I am working on for my homepage. RED Matthews
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Whittle Pic - 
An amazing example, Rory!! It's beyond hammered!! It almost looks like a pattern mold..
RE: Whittle Pic - 
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