sandchip
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your response, Harry. This is what it's all about in trying to figure out how bottles were made in a time before Youtube and from which there is no one left alive to tell us. This may or may not be straying from the original subject yet seeming relevant in the big picture, but "shearing" of the bottle from the blowpipe has never been a popular theory with me, if taken literally in its execution with what, from the pictures I've seen, looks like a large pair of tin snips. Was the neck: 1. Sheared like a piece of clear vinyl tubing at the hardware store? or 2. Did the worker poke a hole in the side of the hot, plastic glass tube (bottle neck), insert the tip of one blade and began cutting around its circumference? or 3. Did they make a pinch cut in one side of the neck to create the hole before cutting? None of the aforementioned "guesses" seem practical at all to me, but instead quite time consuming, not to mention frustrating. In working with glass in its hot, plastic (and very sticky) state, it would seem that: 1. would result in a neck opening pinched shut. 2. probably the same result as 1. as the neck is pushed in from the side, contacting the other side before being perforated by the shears' blade tip. or 3. might actually work, but still result in having to open that portion of the neck stuck together by the pinch cut. With the bottle held horizontally (presumably with a snap), the edge of a thin, wet, wooden paddle (like a paint stir stick) being held against the neck in the desired point of separation, bottle rotated and blowpipe rapped, all taking place in mere seconds, wetting seems so much more productive in terms of time with zero deformation of the neck opening. All this is my opinion, and only an opinion.
Harry, it may just be you and me, partner because I feel like everybody else has left the room, but I hope others will chime in with their opinions. I'm admittedly a bottle junkie. Not a day has passed since I was 14 when I haven't thought about old bottles at least once, well, dozens of times. Maybe this old carpenter/sign maker should've taken up glassblowing instead, huh?
There's glass blowing studio about 20 minutes from here. Maybe the craftsmen there can offer some insight on the matter, although most of theirs is offhand work with very little use of molds.
Harry, it may just be you and me, partner because I feel like everybody else has left the room, but I hope others will chime in with their opinions. I'm admittedly a bottle junkie. Not a day has passed since I was 14 when I haven't thought about old bottles at least once, well, dozens of times. Maybe this old carpenter/sign maker should've taken up glassblowing instead, huh?
There's glass blowing studio about 20 minutes from here. Maybe the craftsmen there can offer some insight on the matter, although most of theirs is offhand work with very little use of molds.