Topic: Look what happened to my glass!

[wesley]

Whilst watching the television last night, there was a sudden bang in my living room. When I looked over this had happened to my wonderful piece of glass!

My dilemma was what to do first:

1. Scrape myself off the ceiling
2. Change my trousers
3. Cry!

I can only imagine that with it being a large piece measuring 15 inches in height it held a lot of stress. (I don’t think it was to do with what was on television!)

Has this happened to anyone else?

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The question I was going to ask prior to this was can anyone identify it? It has a ground pontil and is cased clear/yellow. Reminds me very much of whitefriars style but the wrong colour. Please tell me it was a run of the mill Murano piece.

Best wishes,

Wes

[Anne]

Eeek! I've not had that happen in such a dramatic way (although one of my glass chopping boards exploded last weekend - that was dramatic! blue glass everywhere!!!) although some things have developed a single crack which wasn't there before.  I suppose temperature changes could be the trigger.

[krsilber]

And that was completely spontaneous, with no stimulus?  No ladies singing in high pitches on the boob tube?  How frightening and discouraging!  Sorry to hear it.  There must have been some kind of internal weakness or stress, as you say.  Do the cracks go through both layers of glass?

[Frank]

Worst case  I know of was someone packing their collection of Monart into boxes and storing it in an outhouse while builders were in, wintertime. The entire collection fell apart.

Several pieces of the Parkington Monart collection was broken by the spotlights during the auction viewing, at the Turner sale all the spots were off.

Always a tragedy but it can happen.

[Sklounion]

Nice piece of crizzled glass, Wesley, very unusual.... ,
ok, but a shame when it happens. I had a nice slag glass ashtray which exploded in sun-light, as a hidden bubble expanded, big bang, and several pieces.
Regards,
Marcus

[krsilber]

Rapid temperature changes are the bane of glass collections!  I wouldn't keep any of my prized pieces in the window for that reason, if there was a possibility they'd get direct sunlight.  Especially with a cased piece, where the coefficients of expansion of the two glasses might be slightly different or the outer layer is warmed/cooled more quickly than the inner one, it might not even take a bubble for a problem to arise.

[Ivo]

It does not have to be temperature - if a piece is not adequately annealed it can burst to pieces like this without any direct cause. It happened to a footed vase of mine standing on top of a shelf. The piece jumped off its foot and wedged itself into the parquet flooring.

Seems to me the citrine vase is - sorry was - one of ZBS? I had something similar happen to a ZBS neodymium piece.

[Leni]

Ooops!    Bad luck, Wes! 

I keep quite a lot of glass in my conservatory!    But I do have a heater on in there day and night in case of temperature changes.  Still.  I must be careful in the summer, I guess   

I do have one piece of Adam Aaronson glass which has a small internal fracture.  Adam didn't want to sell it to me, because he warned me it might be unstable, but I liked it so much that I insisted!      But that lives in a cabinet, in a room which is kept at a very steady temperature, so - fingers crossed - it should be OK :spls: 

Leni  xx

[Glen]

A piece of cloud glass exploded (with a "bang") in my hands while I was wiping the dust off it. Result? A large deep cut and a severed tendon in my thumb. I bear the scar still.

Glen

[Leni]

   There's a lesson there, Glen!  Don't dust!   

Leni  xx