Topic: Photos of cast-iron Pressed Glass mould, Inwald?

[David E]

Thought someone would be interested in these photos I took at Himley Hall of a 3-part cast-iron, pressed glass mould. I suspect this was of a Josef Inwald Jacobean creamer.

EDIT: after being contacted by Adam, I understand this cannot be Davidson, who apparently never used auto-presses. Looking at the pattern a little closer, it is probably a Josef Inwald Jacobean creamer.

Please see the following for a 1946 catalogue page:
http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-2995

I can't emphasise enough how heavy this was! The small thumbnail (below) shows the solid plunger at the front. They also have several other weird devices that I'll photo when time permits.



http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-3006
http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-3005
http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-3003

Following are some comments from Adam to accompany his previous articles. At some stage I'll try and tie all of them together!

Hello David

Many thanks - very interesting indeed on several counts.  The massive construction and precision engineering, which is typical and in fact essential because of the huge pressures exerted by a toggle press, is well shown in the excellent picture.  A lot of people on the GMB would like to see this I'm sure.

The (top) ring and centre are not there, of course.  The plug shows well the parallel (ie cylindrical) part which provides the “working edge” (maybe a local term) to allow for variations in weight.

Most interesting is what isn't there.  A hand press mould would have a third set of knuckles at the front, accepting a lift-out, eccentric locking pin for clamping the thing shut at the moment of pressing.  The square lugs which are there show that it is for use on an auto press (or at least a semi-auto), where clamping would be done by pneumatic or hydraulic jaws.  So much for my comments to you (and probably to others) that I've never seen an auto press capable of handling more than two sections.  Still true, but the implication that they didn't exist has gone.  Of course it might still be a semi. . . !  

Before you ask what a semi-auto does, I don't know!  Of course I know hand-pressing and, although never directly responsible for auto-presses I've stood and watched them for hours at a time.  A good definition of the latter might be that, if all the staff dropped dead and there were no such thing as jams or breakdowns, the factory would disappear under a mountain of cream jugs or whatever.  A semi-auto, by definition, will have part done by hand such as the gathering of the gob or the take-out.

Moulds for hand-blowing (much lighter construction but similar shape, but not for handled jugs!) have lugs on the front like yours but with a handle screwed into each.  Holding the mould shut by hand or by a foot-operated pedal is quite adequate for the low forces involved in blowing.  People who have only seen that sort of mould have difficulty in imagining a mould as massive as  your picture shows.

I'd be interested to see your other pics.  Is the plunger hollow?  In the case of an auto-press the plunger nearly always has to be liquid (normally water) cooled.

I haven't waded through all my previous ramblings, so there may be duplication here - sorry!

Regards,

Adam

[Max]

I've never seen a big mould being used...although Adam A once squeezed some glass in a pineapple shaped mould-thing-for-making-bubbles-in-a-paperweight for my amusement...   :shock:

It must be almost like magic, to open the mould and there's a jug / or whatever inside...

[Glen]

I've "used" a big mould / plunger on a side lever press. It certainly took a lot of effort to pull the plunger down into the mould.

You can see how a mould /plunger is made in this article. Take it from page 3 and progress through.

http://www.geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/MouldMakers3.html

Glen

[Max]

Wow Glen!  I'd never read that before.  I'm so impressed! (scuse the pun :oops: )

Really interesting article, I enjoyed the pantograph bit - it explained a lot that I'd wondered about.  Great bowl too...wow ! <swoons>    

[David E]

That truly must have been an amazing experience, Glen, seeing the mould made from a block of raw material to the finished article and then seeing the bowl emerge :envy: :wink:

[Glen]

Cheers, Max  

David - yes it was! It took many months too, from the beginning of the design right through to the emergence of the finished product. I am in awe of the mould makers - I truly believe they are the un-sung heroes of pressed glass production.

I was going to look again at your mould photos, but they are currently not there. The Clayton Mayers ad is, though. To add a little re. Inwald and Jacobean..........

http://www.geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/Jacob2.html

and if you'd like to look at what was going on in Czechoslovakia on the machinery side of things, you may find some of the pages of my Rindskopf feature of interest.
http://www.geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/MachineFullpage.html

And some mould drawings here
http://www.geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/RindMouldDrawings.html

Glen

[David E]

Thanks for all the links, Glen. I'll check these out!

The first link was not updated properly after I re-uploaded all the photos - all corrected apart from the thumbnails keep going AWOL :?

[David E]

Very interesting article on the Carnival Jacobean range. I wasn't sure of the date, so I'll amend that on GG.

I love looking at these earlier black & white photos of factories and machinery — there must be a Fred Dibnah in me somewhere  One point about those photos Glen: it would be better to create a set of thumbnails rather than use the large photos as it will make the page load quicker.

The mould drawings are so interesting: I'll drop Adam a mail so he can have a look. I reckon he'll be very interested unless he's seen them already.