Topic: Kunsthandwerk glass vase.

[Sendhandfran]

I've taken some daylight photos, when they're resized I'll post them

[Sendhandfran]

Another thing peculiar to this & not my ruby red Victorian vase is light can reflect a yellow colour off it.

[Fuhrman Glass]

not necessarily deliberate, but people don't understand that  glassworkers don't always have complete control of the material with which they work. "the glass has a mind of it's own many times", and it is not afraid to speak it.
I've many times  had red go orange after reheating.
Most collectors have no idea of the difficulty of batching colors and actually getting them to work with each other. It's been said many times that the Germans had a saying and that was that a formula couldn't cross the street. meaning that just because one company could get the results they wanted from a formula, didn't mean that it could be replicated by others. Size of furnaces, source of raw materials, heat sources, etc. all have major effects on the final result. That's why so many studio artists and many smaller companies use the premixed color rods from Kugler, Reichenbach, Gaffer, and others for their color and then encase them in crystal. That's been going on for many, many years.
It's the same as with making good wine, cheese, cooking, etc. The one in control and the ingredients they use and their equipment can make a lot of difference in the final outcome. Even freshness has a bearing in mixing glasses. If an ingredient is allowed to sit too long and absorb any moisture, that can throw off the calculations of mixing the ingredients by weight which is normally the case. the difference between a 3% moisture content and 20% is critical. Have you ever tried to measure the moisture content in chemicals? very difficult.

[Sendhandfran]

Hi fhr, thanks for the info, i never appreciated quite how difficult it can be to get desired results or how hit & miss it can be.
He's some more photos of the thing. You can see the thinner base & how the dark colour has a plum hue to it. It looks a different enough colour do you think it could be deliberate?

[flying free]

Tom thank you for expanding on the subject of the intricacies of glass making.
Collector not glass maker here and I know some from reading various books how difficult it is, but admit I don't understand the process at all as a collector.

And I agree I don't think many collectors understand the difficulty of the process at all.  I'm always in awe of all glass makers.
I'm particularly amazed at the accomplishments of antique glass makers and the art they made, constantly breaking new ground with their 'inventions'. I've just sold a piece of Lithyalin decorated Hyalith glass (need the funds for uni fees unfortunately) but I felt honoured to have owned it and held it.  It was an amazing piece.  No one who saw it could believe it was actually glass.  There is such incredible talent to glass making
m

[Sendhandfran]

Snap flying free, well said. Like you i like to collect glass but no Very little about how its made. Its Fantastic to have a glass makers input here! I'm in awe of how its made & in such variety, it amazes me every time i see it.

[Fuhrman Glass]

one of the problems in today's world is that there are few places to actually experience glassmaking. and very few that are experienced in glass formulations. Those were always hidden secrets that rarely got farther than the batch room. The batch maker was one of the unsung heroes in my estimation. Without his expertise the factories would have been out of production very quickly. as collectors, I would think it would be desirable if you could have anyone that could come speak at conferences on the art of glass chemistry and also the intricacies of production. i.e. some items required as many as 15-18 men in a "shop" to produce the desired items. The common shops differed in how many men were in them from the US to normal German shop.
I also think that many of the unsung heroes were the mold makers. These men were incredible in my estimation. Once you see a 6-8 piece mold with kickups and sliders in it and all the tooled decorations in it, it is amazing. and they actually worked and made with machines that were themselves crude by today's standards. I have seen quite a few molds that worked for one factory but not another. Here again, each individual factory had it's expertise and employees shifted from one factory to the next and were the solutions to each type of production. There were truly a lot of genius's in the glass industry over the years, but few have gotten the fame they deserved. They are only appreciated for their "artistic" qualities and nothing is said of their engineering, tool making, and production skills. sorry for the lengthy rant, but people need to know.

[antiquerose123]

Hi Fran!!    ...and belated Welcome!!

Interesting discussion here, well read!!

[flying free]

Not at all a rant - thank you for explaining more.
Mold making I can understand a little better than chemistry, Engineering in family so I have more appreciation of that side of things.  But even so, yes it's mind boggling when someone does explain how much work went into/goes into producing some glass objects.
I think the process  is completely under-appreciated in the collecting world. 
m

[Fuhrman Glass]

just the proper placements of vent holes in some molds can make a huge difference in trying to get production from them. I've had some that I know previous factories had produced but we can't seem to get the items out of the mold without them sticking. There was a lot of engineering and heat transfer technology went into many before anyone even knew the science of heat transfer and metallurgy.