"Orange peel" effect

Welcome to our Antique Bottle community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Wheelah23

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2010
Messages
4,511
Reaction score
5
Points
38
Location
Glen Ridge, New Jersey
I didn't really know where to post this, but I guess it'd fit on the historic glass website, so I'll post it here... [&:]

What causes this "orange peel" effect which I'm sure we've all seen? Is it a type of whittle? The only two bottles I have that exhibit it so pronouncedly are, oddly enough, both local tooled crowns that date from 1910-1915, I estimate. Even the older bottles I have do not have this effect. Maybe these crowns were blown at a certain glasshouse that was not good at eliminating the orange peel texture? I really don't know how to explain it.

C4A4B23B86A64BE68E171FBDE74765E3.jpg
 

Attachments

  • C4A4B23B86A64BE68E171FBDE74765E3.jpg
    C4A4B23B86A64BE68E171FBDE74765E3.jpg
    55.7 KB · Views: 381

AntiqueMeds

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2009
Messages
3,064
Reaction score
10
Points
0
Location
Frederick, MD.
could be a number of things,
the texture of the iron used in the mold,
the cold iron ripple effect if the mold isnt up to temperature,
iron molds get worn and pitted as they are used.
 

RED Matthews

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2008
Messages
4,898
Reaction score
5
Points
0
Location
Sarasota FL & Burdett NY
Regarding orange peal. If the bottle is an ABM product, one thing that can be considered is the use of dry powder sulfur powder, picked up on a wire handled cotton string swab. This practice got started on the early glass machines and was done whenever the man running the machine, felt that the glass was not releasing from the mold smoothly or tended to stick when the when the mold opened to have the take-out jaw pick up the bottle.
Another thing they did with these cotton swabs, was to have one setting in a can of swabbing oil. Here again if the glass wasn't releasing right from the mold, this would help the proper release. The operators would often take the next bottle out of the mold and through it down the cullet chute which dunked it in a water tank in the basement under the machines, and the pieces were sent to the batch house for addition to the batch material. Culled is an important addition to the glass batch material. When the batch material is worked into the glass melting furnace, cullet would drop into the melt and help blend the new materials in the furnace tank.
Just some more TMI for your reading. RED Matthews
 

Asterx

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2009
Messages
909
Reaction score
0
Points
0
If the bottle is an ABM product
Both look BIM to me but hard to tell. I have a few bottles that have this effect only on the bottom 1/2 or 1/3rd of the bottle and are also sodas/beers. Its a good question...
 

georgeoj

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2007
Messages
1,143
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Location
Jonesville, Michigan
I have seen this condition in both jars and bottles. It can be isolated to a small area or, as in the picture, it can cover an entire jar/bottle. A comment by Red on another post, some time ago, got me to examine several jars with the condition. It does look like coating the surface of a sticking mold could be the answer to most/all of these. This could have been a practice by individual glass blowers for any length of time. George

9E7184F6F45E4E4897CCCF6E64B39ADA.jpg
 

Attachments

  • 9E7184F6F45E4E4897CCCF6E64B39ADA.jpg
    9E7184F6F45E4E4897CCCF6E64B39ADA.jpg
    57.2 KB · Views: 374

RED Matthews

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2008
Messages
4,898
Reaction score
5
Points
0
Location
Sarasota FL & Burdett NY
Thanks George, I know that this practice was well established and used on all kinds of glass machine bottle making. When I went to work at Thatcher's; they used it on the HMB and all the IS machines. There were several companies that sold the swabs and the mold lubricating oils. I know that a lot of the operators would discard the early glass when this was done. I also know that When the production glass was inspected before packing - the girls threw out a lot of glass for this reason. When they went to inspection machinery, that looked for bird-swings and spikes, and otjer defects - a lot went to cullet.

When I went into my own sales company MATTHEWS TECHNICAL SALES; I traveled all over the world going to seminars, and all the glass houses I could get to, to sell special alloy's to them. At one time I had all the glass companies identified with letter codes and over 3,000 peoples names in my computer. I was selling special metal orifice rings of one alloy that would control the gob diameter for a much longer time than the earlier plain ceramic orifice rings. From there we supplied delivery through segments, and all the mold parts touching the glass on the machine including the take-out jaws and the dead plates, that even had the path of the bottle sweep out duplicated in the surface grooves the bottles followed on those dead plates. At one time Borden's gave recognition to the Ball Glass for this glass ware quality. It was all a satisfying experience.

The assignments of work included a lot of different subjects, the solutions provided a lot of experience and successful corrections kept me into it. So here I am trying to help people where I can to make the appreciation of America's first industry still a successful thing. ( Aand I am down on beer and soda in plastic bottles - my car even has a bumper sticker "Only The Best Comes In Glass".
 

epackage

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
19,057
Reaction score
424
Points
83
Location
Jersey
Orange peel to the nth degree due to soil conditions....



0D8521D3C51D4492BF0BFE2A31CDA418.jpg
 

Attachments

  • 0D8521D3C51D4492BF0BFE2A31CDA418.jpg
    0D8521D3C51D4492BF0BFE2A31CDA418.jpg
    77.5 KB · Views: 376
Joined
Jul 17, 2015
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Re: RE: "Orange peel" effect

Good Info RED! i appreciate your post and the wealth of info you share with us! Thanks.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest threads

Forum statistics

Threads
83,216
Messages
742,899
Members
24,229
Latest member
TracyPecora
Top