Topic: Recycling glass with a difference

[aa]

Here are the results from the first trials. Unfortunately the champagne piece cracked on cooling. I did some more today, one of which looked quite interesting.

[aa]

Adam
 I asked her about compatibilty problems and how she dealt with it, did she check each piece for hidden stresses?  ...... but now she relies on her experience gained through her glass qualification and years of working with the materials.

Although you would use a different process to form the glass, does Barbara's work indicate that different recycled glass can be used together successfully?

Very interesting work, Lynne. From what I have been reading it is probably I think that there should be possibilities to mix different glasses, but Barbara's method of relying on experience is probably the best way.

[Leni]

If I remember correctly, Anne Arlidge (Assenden Glass - http://www.assendenglass.co.uk/ ) once told me that she used recycled glass in her 'lost fruit and vegetable' castings! 

[aa]

Yes, I think she uses Dartington cullet, in common with a number of glass makers. Of course, we re-melt our own cullet where possible and this is cost effective as well as eco-friendly.

[Leni]

Ah!  So not quite the same thing!   

(Did I imagine her melting down old milk bottles?  )

[aa]

Well, not quite but still commendable. Dartington cullet would go into landfill if studio makers didn't buy it.

But the history of studio glass is littered with stories of people receiving a tea-chest full of cullet from Dartington or similar, to which the delivery driver or some other kind soul has generously added the odd milk bottle. This is why the wiser makers (defined simply as those who have had their melts ruined) sift through the cullet with a toothcomb before melting!!

[Anne]

So what you're saying Adam, is that adding milk bottles to cullet turns it sour? 

[aa]

Exactly. :hiclp:

[krsilber]

Very nice, Adam!  I'm eager to see your future experiments, too.

I don't know if this is at all helpful, you probably already know it or some other way of doing it, but I read what I thought was an interesting technique Frederick Carder used to assess the compatibility of different glasses in terms of their coefficients of expansion.  He would lay a couple strings of different glass together, and after they annealed if they ended up in a curve they weren't compatible.