Topic: Anyone interested in old glass recipes- by old I mean 18th, 19th c.?

[sph@ngw]

I have some old recipe books of Charles Henry Kempton of the 1870-1900's, and will try to pick out some interesting ones.....
While I admit to being biased, the invention and creativity of this company has been greatly neglected by historians and glass scientists , in my opinion!

[Fuhrman Glass]

     Myself and other contemporary glassblowers would be very interested in those. any chance of you sharing the book? Was it printed or handwritten as many were back then.

[sph@ngw]

Not a chance, sorry,  there are three books and about 600 recipes, many using ingredients no longer available.
They are only of interest for historical reasons, ( use of potatoes to boil up the glass for instance.

[Fuhrman Glass]

  many of us still use the potato technique to stir our glass and get it to fine out. Many of those older ingredients can be translated over to modern day chemicals and compounds. The real problem arises when one tries to replicate a formula but the technique of melting the batch and how it is mixed can make all the difference in the world. That is why many of the old companies had problems replicating exactly a formula from another company unless they hired the person doing the mixing and controlling the actual melting process. getting the right temperatures and right oxidation levels at the exact time needed was truly an art.
There have been several books published that have deciphered old German formulas . One was by Finn Lynggard of Denmark now out of print.