Digging at the Whitall Tatum factory?

[tigue710]

whew... this one took off...! As Chris said there was a team involved in each bottle blown. The gaffers job was to collect the gather, insert it into the mold and expand. When he was done expanding the bottle in the mold it was removed and handed off for finishing, where upon he took a new blow pipe, collected a gather and started over. As this was going on he had a boy who operated the mold, and a few more boys who removed the bottle from the pipe, finished the lip and brought the bottle to the annealing ovens. Exactly how many people it took or were employed in the process varied from glass house to glass house while modifications such as a pedal operated mold, snap case and hand tooling the neck into a lip form changed the process dramatically.

That said the rate at which bottles were being blown in the mold is about 1 every minute on average through the middle to late period of the 19th century. I believe it is possible that the early bronze molds were insulated, but also a factor for the earlier molds is that working temptures could have cooler because of heating methods and there might have been only one or two workers blowing and finishing a bottle, which would have gave the mold more time to cool...

As for cooling the mold or using a release agent in every litho or etching Ive seen of early glass house interiors there are always a few buckets around close to the mold? I wonder what they held and if there was a direct relation to the mold?

Its likely that a mold material was chosen because of its ability to maintain operating temperatures with accord to the rate of production rather then altering the rate of production and cooling and heating the molds to comply with the restraints of the mold. Im sure the alloy chosen was specifically designed and used for glass blowing if the margin for success is really as slender as we believe. I do remember reading but can not remember where that the mold makers were highly reguarded and kept secret, and there were cases of mold makers being bribed away or stolen by competing glass houses...

 

[tigue710]

did anyone else pick up on how they treated the pontil on that lily pad pitcher in the video? They rolled it creating what looked like would leave a tubular pontil mark? very interesting...

 

[epackage]

ORIGINAL: RED Matthews

I am working on this review thread.  When I was with Thatchers I worked with most all of the foundries that made mold castings.   These included:   Kelly Foundry   Elkins,  West Virginia.                               
                                         Binney Foudry  where they cast
                                          Binney’s  DV bronze
                                          Binney’s  51 C  iron                             
                                               Overmyer Mold Company,  Muncie Indiana  where they made                                                                         Mold iron, a bronze and other metal castings for the glass industry.     

I haven’t had time to work on my comments to review the first part of this thread.  Sorry. RED Matthews

Hi Red a far

J

 

[epackage]

ORIGINAL: RED Matthews

I am working on this review thread.  When I was with Thatchers I worked with most all of the foundries that made mold castings.   These included:   Kelly Foundry   Elkins,  West Virginia.                               
                                         Binney Foudry  where they cast
                                          Binney’s  DV bronze
                                          Binney’s  51 C  iron                             
                                               Overmyer Mold Company,  Muncie Indiana  where they made                                                                         Mold iron, a bronze and other metal castings for the glass industry.   [[[
OI hate ,ysr;f

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzi on

 

[epackage]

dE

 

[kungfufighter]

If anyone finds themselves in the North Country you can watch glassblowers up close and personal like at Simon Pearce Studios.

 

[saratogadriver]

Jeff, is Simon Pearce back up and running? I understood that they had the Ottaquechee right through their furnaces during Irene, and sustained serious damage... I'd love to spend a day watching them work sometime.

Jim G

ORIGINAL: kungfufighter

If anyone finds themselves in the North Country you can watch glassblowers up close and personal like at Simon Pearce Studios.

 

[KentOhio]

I read a glassblower's diary once. It was from the late 1860s. Unfortunately it contained no glass secrets. All it had was when he woke up each day, how the weather was, and I think he went to a dance one Saturday night and played baseball another day.
I have some molds and have experimented with them a little. I've used aluminum and iron. The aluminum mold I used three times to make a bottle with a rest of about 20 minutes in-between each bottle. Each turned out better than the last, each time with less whittle and more definition to the design. The iron mold I used three times to press an object, with about 5 minutes of rest in-between each piece. The first was whittled and didn't fill completely, the second was pretty good, and the third looked the best but nearly stuck to the mold. I have the impression in my mind that molds need to be the right temperature between too chilled with no detail, and too hot where the glass sticks. Iron pontils, after all, are iron too, that's stuck to the glass.
I read somewhere that Fenton's snap cases were brushed with lime to prevent sticking.
I also saw a patent from the 1880s or so where someone had the idea to have a core of graphite-rich iron as the interior of a cast iron mold.
Molds of the 1850s seem to have been thin like the Coventry mold but iron like later molds. The Philadelphia museum of art has some on its website, if you search. They have a Jenny Lind mold, barrel bitters, booze, and some others I remember.

 

[epackage]

ORIGINAL: epackage

ORIGINAL: RED Matthews

I am working on this review thread.  When I was with Thatchers I worked with most all of the foundries that made mold castings.   These included:   Kelly Foundry   Elkins,  West Virginia.                               
                                         Binney Foudry  where they cast
                                          Binney’s  DV bronze
                                          Binney’s  51 C  iron                             
                                               Overmyer Mold Company,  Muncie Indiana  where they made                                                                         Mold iron, a bronze and other metal castings for the glass industry.     

I haven’t had time to work on my comments to review the first part of this thread.  Sorry. RED Matthews

Hi Red a far

J

Either my acct. got hacked or I was "sleep websurfing"....WTH is that ?????[:-]

 

[epackage]

ORIGINAL: epackage

ORIGINAL: RED Matthews

I am working on this review thread.  When I was with Thatchers I worked with most all of the foundries that made mold castings.   These included:   Kelly Foundry   Elkins,  West Virginia.                               
                                         Binney Foudry  where they cast
                                          Binney’s  DV bronze
                                          Binney’s  51 C  iron                             
                                               Overmyer Mold Company,  Muncie Indiana  where they made                                                                         Mold iron, a bronze and other metal castings for the glass industry.   [[[
OI hate ,ysr;f

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzi on

Same here...

Either my acct. got hacked or I was "sleep websurfing"....WTH is that ?????[:-]