Topic: How were 1950s Johnson Matthey? fired-on transfers applied and fired on?

[Bernard C]

For an example on a 1950s Davidson Polished Black 644 celery see the third photograph down on this web page.

I recall from my youth transfers from Airfix kits, where you soaked the backing paper and then slid them off onto the wing of your ME109 or Spitfire, and then let them dry well out of reach of Mum and younger siblings.   So there must have been a layer of water-based glue between the transfer and the backing paper.   Was it the same for fired-on transfers?

Were they fired on in the annealing lehr?   Did the transfers have to dry before they were put in?

Or was it a completely different process?

Enlightenment sought please.

Bernard C. 

[Frank]

Same process, fused in an annealing oven.

[Lustrousstone]

See Chance Expressions p84 

[Bernard C]

Frank & Christine — Thanks.   So I wasn't so far off with my Airfix kit analogy.

Encill alerts you to be careful with transfer suppliers;  Johnson Matthey may have been the largest, but they weren't alone.

I really must get more used to checking with Encill, as there is a wealth of useful information there that has much wider implications for glass collectors, dealers, and historians, than just Chance products.   If you read this, David, apologies, but I'm getting there.

Bernard C. 

[Frank]

It is not only transfer suppliers, but also suppliers of transfer paper and equipment. Many glassworks bought in their own and produced their own transfers... also transfers could be drawn by hand.

[Anne]

Bernard, having used these ceramics transfers myself I can confirm they work in the same way. Soak in water, place on item, slide the backing paper out and smooth down to remove air bubbles. The only difference is, as Frank says, that they can then be fired onto the item. Note that they don't *have* to be fired on to work though. It just makes them more durable. I've used the KH Bailey & Sons ones on glass, pottery over glaze and on metal and painted items and they work just fine. (I use them on my canalware for certain lines.)

[Bernard C]

Frank & Anne — thanks for those supplementaries.

Bernard C. 

[Frank]

Transfer suppliers listed here http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,6965.0.html

[Adam]

I was heavily involved in transfers - first in a small way at Sowerbys around Coronation time then much more so in the 1960s with the various transfers used by Jobling on opal ware.

While you can usually get away with simply shoving the article into an annealing lehr, when it comes to anything like mass production there is rather more to it.  A dedicated decorating lehr is used which is, in effect, an annealing lehr with a slow pre-heating section grafted on the front.  Somewhere I posted a description of the DIY version which we made at Sowerbys at that time.  A major difference with a proper decorating lehr is that the conveyor belt is returned outside the lehr so that it arrives back at the loading end cold.  A normal annealing lehr has a "hot return" belt, brought back on the inside.  From an engineering viewpoint these differences are not trivial.  Belts are very heavy and heating (and cooling) them while travelling takes a great deal of energy.

As an aside, we had a case where, in the past someone had acquired a lehr which must have started life as a decorating lehr and modified it, hopefully, for annealing mass-produced pressed ware for later tempering.  From time to time breakages occurred in the on-line testing of the final product and a few reached domestic kitchens (rice pudding all over the floor was the usual symptom).  The cause was small, difficult to see cracks resulting from articles hot from the press being loaded on to the cold-return belt.  A really powerful gas burner had to be fitted to pre-heat the belt to a temperature which it should have been at from the outset.

Back to transfers.  Jobling made fluoride opal ovenware, decorated by transfers (as well as, in some cases, by direct silk screening) which were fired in a "proper" decorating lehr before being heated and quenched to temper them to give the equivalent resistance to thermal shock as borosilicate.  The transfers had to be capable of withstanding all of this.  Johnson, Matthey of course managed this very well, as did the limited number of transfers which we made ourselves.  However, one small firm of transfer makers came badly unstuck with a complex transfer which used, I think, at least five different colours.  Very precise printing registration was needed for success.  Less precision resulted in the overlapping of several layers and the resultant extra thickness of enamel set up stresses which gave us article breakages.

Simple studio-type use of transfers is no doubt easy.  When you start in big time there can be problems!!

Adam D.

[Bernard C]

Frank — Thanks for the list.

Adam — Thanks, once again, for authoritarian chapter and verse on this.   I found your previous material, on the first page of a popular and useful long rambling topic Decorated glassware, well worth re-reading.

Can you recall what system was used at Davidson's?   They must have been firing on transfer decorations while you were there, simply from the quantity of their decorated glass that is found today.

Bernard C.