Mold Cavity Half-Leaf Repair Marks

[GuntherHess]

I find it difficult to accept it is a mold repair.
There weren't a huge number of molds made for early bottles. If it was a repair I would expect two matching examples wouldnt be too hard to find.
Just taking Townsends sarsaparillas as an example, the mold modifications there are fairly well known and multiple examples show up.

 

[baltbottles]

Tigue,

The walls of a cast iron mold were quite thick. The early brass molds were much thinner. Take a look at the thickness of this simple 3 part cylinder mold http://www.bottlemysteries.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/keylock2.jpg
I would say some parts are 3/4 inch thick. That’s plenty of width to cause one of the glass pinches we are discussing.

Also like you say if by pulling a flap from the bottle to fill a hole you would distort the bottle. Then the inside of the bottle should also have a similar error as the out side. However they don't the inside is completely smooth yet pushed in slightly farther because of the cold fin of glass being pressed into the still hot glass while the gather is being expanded in the mold by the gaffer.

As to the texture I would say that is picked up from the walls of the mold these lines are likely the remains of saw or file marks from cutting the original block of cast iron to size to align the edges perfectly for a tight fit of the parts of the mold. The reason there are no horizontal lines from the turning of the gather in the mold is simply because the fin had already been cooled to a point where it was solid and no longer able to accept any impression.

I'm adding two pictures one is of a blowing error of this type that was cold enough to not except any mold impression and actually broke into two due likely to the stress of the temperature difference and the force of the air being used to expand the gather into the mold. The second which is in the next post is through the lip of a soda that has this type of error down into the bottle you can see that the back of the error is smooth and intended further then the normal thickness of the glass due to the cold fin adding an extra layer of glass to that area. This is a hard picture to see I really need a way to take a picture from inside. Chris

 

[baltbottles]

The other picture.

Chris

 

[RED Matthews]

Hello baltbottles; I went back again to review your note. Is that second picture you posted on the inside or outside of the bottom.glass. I have another bottlemystery subject that I am working on. This might be more relative to that situation.
I sure stirred up some flack over this subject but somehow I have to keep working on these mysteries. Thanks, RED Matthews

 

[tigue710]

Im sold. I think you have nailed it on the head Chris. I could never really go with the tooling theory 100% becuase it didnt really add up in the end, but it was the best explaination I had heard before this. I remember someone talking about the gather being pinched in the mold before, but the conversation was vague...

It could still be possible for a blow out to have been tooled and reinserted in the mold I think, but not in debate of how the wingy was made.

 

[cyberdigger]

I think I get it too, now.. the gather, spherical in shape.. it is positioned inside the mold, which is then closed.. oops! it doesn't close all the way.. the mold is reopened a bit and they realized the gather was pinched a bit.. oh well no reason to start again, just give her a quick twist and shut the mold and start blowing.. it's almost time for lunch!

 

[GuntherHess]

I sure stirred up some flack over this subject

yes, but good flack... no knock down drag out fights[]

 

[blobbottlebob]

I'm being serious here. I love that there are people who care about this hobby enough that they are arguing about the theoretical foundations of mis-formed bottles. This is so cool! My wife, on the other hand, would fall asleep in three seconds if I read her this post. Great stuff people!

Here is my example. I posted this picture a few weeks ago. It has the alleged half leaf. The picture shows some folds in the glass above the anomaly.

 

[cyberdigger]

[]

 

[baltbottles]

Cyberdigger, you have said it quite well yet simply in your post of how these were made."I think I get it too, now.. the gather, spherical in shape.. it is positioned inside the mold, which is then closed.. oops! it doesn't close all the way.. the mold is reopened a bit and they realized the gather was pinched a bit.. oh well no reason to start again, just give her a quick twist and shut the mold and start blowing.. it's almost time for lunch!"

Lobey, The fin was caused just after the gather was first inserted into the mold before it was expanded. how it got partly caught between the mold halves, who knows a number of factors could come into play. Perhaps the parson was misshapen, perhaps it wasn't inserted correctly and was skewed at an angle. Perhaps they were working at such a fast pace the mold boy in the pit closed the mold too quickly before the blower had the gather completely in the mold. This would happen while the gather was still small and before it ever touched any part of the mold except where it had been pinched. Once this occurred the quickest way to fix it would be to open the mold slightly and with a quick turn of a few degrees to pull the fin inside of the mold then reclose the mold and blow the bottle the now cooled fin being pressed into the hot surface of the now expanded bottle.

Red, the second picture is showing the inside of the bottle, as it would be seen by looking down through the lip inside of it. You can see that the backside of the flap in the bottle has no tooled shut hole and is completely smooth and is pushed into the bottle slightly due to the extra thickness of the glass in the area of the flap.

Here is another picture showing the flap on the outside of the bottle to show it’s the same kind of flap we have been discussing. Also I am posting another picture taken of the base of this bottle showing that where the flap is on the outside of the bottle it can be seen that the wall of the bottle is much thicker due to this flap being pushed into the bottle during blowing.

Also if this was a repair to the mold the wall in the area of the repair should not be any thicker then the rest of the wall of the bottle.

Chris