.......hallo again Pinkspoons.....your bubbly vase needs to be cased in something or it'd look a bit like the outside of a pineapple or a golf ball. A casing to the exterior seals the air that forms the bubbles. And yours isn't cased in clear glass. So I asked my glassmaking pal again to find out if the ruby vase could have been cased in another layer of ruby......or whether the vase could have been made like the ruby ducks - where the inner layer is clear glass and the outer layer ruby - to explain why your water test didn't come up with results.
He reckons some earlier examples could well have been made using either method - that various ways would have been tried over the years to get the best results. Thing is he says - 'ruby on ruby' would probably oft have resulted in a too deep too dark colour and the bubbles trapped between might have been difficult to see so it's not the most reliable way. The 'ruby on clear' method is a possibility too but what the results are like - hard to tell - but try a water test again to see if an inner clear layer is detectable, suggests my pal. Ultimately a good reliable form was devised - 'clear on ruby' - the one commonly seen from the mid 50s onwards.
My pal says that there are also different sized bubble moulds for different sized bubbles and vases - hence big bubbles are not just a result of glass being stretched out as it's blown - I don't understand this technology so I can't be any more specific currently.
But I did have a more diligent look at the catalogues, Pinkspoons, and one pattern in particular reveals a change in bubbles over the years. If you take a peek at the 1938 catalogue, where Whitefriars bubble vases first seem to appear, the bubbles are smaller and arranged in 'paired rows' in pattern numbers 9116, 9117, 9118, 9119, 9127 and 9135. In the 1940 catalogue 9117 appears again (along with 9135). Vases and bowls with paired bubbles are extremely rare say my chums so keep an eye out. In the 1950 catalogue 9117 appears again but this time the bubbles look very different - they're not in paired rows but, rather, are larger more elongated bubbles - some 'joined up' by accident (my pal says glassmakers would try and have it so as this wouldn't happen).
So it looks like 'bubbles' has been a rather dynamic phenomenon - far more so than I understood when this thread first started, Pinkspoons. I've learnt a heck of a lot and with you to thank for bringing it up - not to mention all the pals that chipped in with help. There's obviously a lot more to learn about bubbles and lobes (certainly for me about 'open optics' with vertical creases:
but it no longer feels as 'itchy' to me as it was at first - that 'the bed has roughly been made with a corner or two tucked in'.
Be good to hear if anyone can help make the bed look immaculate - like the ones in hotels - the sheet turned down and a chocolate on the pillow. PinkyXX
Topic: I say Whitefriars, you say...? (Read 6057 times)
