Iron pontils

Welcome to our Antique Bottle community

Be a part of something great, join today!

opmustard

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2021
Messages
277
Reaction score
351
Points
63
I
They fire polish the with a flame melting the surface. This breaks the surface tension and smoothes it out. It is done during the manufacture of the bottle before the annealing process.
ROBBYBOBBY64.
Think I've had that type of pontil on some Dr. Townsend's Sarsaparillas.
opmustard
 

sandchip

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2008
Messages
5,295
Reaction score
1,161
Points
113
Location
Georgia
I don't subscribe to either, refired or fire polished in regards to pontil scars. To me they are one in the same, fallacious and totally unrealistic in the commercial production of utilitarian bottles. Something as thin as a sheared lip can be fire polished if seen as necessary to eliminate a dangerous edge occurring during the wetting off of the blowpipe, but a ridiculous amount of time and heat would be needed to cause a pontil scar to melt back into the bottom of the bottle without badly distorting or downright destroying the bottle. In other words, it wasn't done. On higher end vessels such as tableware, if the pontil scar was considered objectionable, then it was ground and then polished. The term "refired pontil" came about from folks either wanting to imagine that they had a pontiled bottle, or an unscrupulous seller trying to fool an unsuspecting buyer. Refired pontils and sand pontils are two completely different things, and should not be confused. The Townsend's usually have the latter, a legitimate method of empontiling.
 

opmustard

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2021
Messages
277
Reaction score
351
Points
63
I don't subscribe to either, refired or fire polished in regards to pontil scars. To me they are one in the same, fallacious and totally unrealistic in the commercial production of utilitarian bottles. Something as thin as a sheared lip can be fire polished if seen as necessary to eliminate a dangerous edge occurring during the wetting off of the blowpipe, but a ridiculous amount of time and heat would be needed to cause a pontil scar to melt back into the bottom of the bottle without badly distorting or downright destroying the bottle. In other words, it wasn't done. On higher end vessels such as tableware, if the pontil scar was considered objectionable, then it was ground and then polished. The term "refired pontil" came about from folks either wanting to imagine that they had a pontiled bottle, or an unscrupulous seller trying to fool an unsuspecting buyer. Refired pontils and sand pontils are two completely different things, and should not be confused. The Townsend's usually have the latter, a legitimate method of empontiling.
I can understand the logic in what your saying about a glass company not putting more labor than they had to, a company was in business to make a profit. I do unerstand an iron or an open pontil and those make sense in the process of making bottles back in those days.
Thank you for your post, it makes sense.
opmustard
 

opmustard

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2021
Messages
277
Reaction score
351
Points
63
Well stated, sandchip! This refired idea is another collector myth like wooden molds and graphite pontil scars.
Now your going to have educate me about wooden molds. I thought that they used wooden molds.
opmustard
 

sandchip

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2008
Messages
5,295
Reaction score
1,161
Points
113
Location
Georgia
Now your going to have educate me about wooden molds. I thought that they used wooden molds.
opmustard

The closest thing as far as wood being used would be a block with a hemispherical cutout that was wet and used to give the rotated parison a uniform globular shape, normally used in freeblown objects. Still see them used today. Not sure what they're called though.
 

opmustard

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2021
Messages
277
Reaction score
351
Points
63
The closest thing as far as wood being used would be a block with a hemispherical cutout that was wet and used to give the rotated parison a uniform globular shape, normally used in freeblown objects. Still see them used today. Not sure what they're called though.

What material did they use for making bottle molds?
opmustard
 

sandchip

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2008
Messages
5,295
Reaction score
1,161
Points
113
Location
Georgia
The closest thing as far as wood being used would be a block with a hemispherical cutout that was wet and used to give the rotated parison a uniform globular shape, normally used in freeblown objects. Still see them used today. Not sure what they're called though.

Turns out they're called simply, a "block".
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest threads

Forum statistics

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