Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1905-07-17
BOWL BIG AS A WAsHTUR.
Greatest Piece of Cut Glass Ever
Blown in World.

In the window of a great jewelry
house in New York there has been on
exhibition for some weeks a cut-glass
punch bowl valued at $4,000 It is the
largest cut-glass bowl in the world
having a circumference of seven feet
one inch and diameter Of twenty
seven inches, three inches more than
any other bowl ever successfully cut.
This magnificent specimen OF handi-
craft has attracted the attention of
the world of arts and crafts to the ad-
vance made by American workmen in
an art in which, until a few years ago,
Europeans eXcelled.
The bowl was cut in Brooklyn, the
cutters name being John S. Earl, and
it represents 210 days labor in the
cutting by Mr.. Earl and two as
sistants. To cut such a large piece
was a great triumph, but the greatest
credit of all in the production of the
bowl is due New England workmen,
who made the "blank" on which
cutter worked.
Given a large blank, any skillful
cutter can produce a large piece of
cut glass. The test, so far as size
goes, lies in the ability of glass-blow-
ers to produce the blank. Glass
works where very large blanks of
high grade can be produced are rare
but one that produces more high
grade blanks of large size than any
other in the country, if not in the
world, is that from which the blank
for this great bowl came, the Union
Glass works in Somerville.
Glasscutters in all parts of the coun-
try send to the Somerville works for
blanks. The works have been in
existence more than half a century
and have outlived all the other glass
works in New England, prospecting
while the glass trade died out around
them.
Now the Union works employs more
than 200 highly skilled men and pro-
duce quality Of glass that can not
be duplicated. It's workmen are vers-
ed in ali branches of the art and can
blow blanks for frail champagne
glasses and for great punch bowls
i'll the same day and equally well.
This skill has not been acquired
quickly. There are men in the works
now past middle life who went to
work there as boys. Day after day
and year after year they have been
seriously practiciDg the difficult art
and none in their calling can now
excel them in Skill
When the order came for the blank
for the great punch bowl, the man.
ayers Of the works consulted their
head gaffer-a gaffer, in glass-blow-
ing works, is head man, an overseer,
the word being an old English dialect
corruption of grandfather-and the
head gaffer, William P. Doran, who
has been in the works since his youth,
said he thought the firm could turn
out twenty-seven inch bowl il any
body could.
Previously the largest bowl produc-
ed had been twenty-four inches. Be-
yond that size the difficulty of proiuc-
tion increases at ratio quite out of
proportion to the three extra inches
desired.
Producing the Great Blank.
For the production of the great
blank, every condition in the works
had to be right. The mixture of
white sand, red lead, saltpeter and
other ingredients used as the base of
glass had to be compounded to secure
the greatest purity, with utter absence
of coloriEg. The heat in the melting
furnaces had to be just So for the
same reason. Then the workmen who
we're to be trusted with the task of
producing the bowl must be conf
dent.
1t may be stated that there is no
trade in which a man can less afford
to be nervous than in that of glass
blower.
In the Union works, as ia all glass
works, the men work in gangs, or
Shops" with a gaffer or overseer at
the head of each shop.
The work of producing the record
breaking blank was intrusted to the
shop OF CATER John LOfquist, who
stands with the elect among the glass
blowers, and has the strength and en-
durance necessary to manipulate large
masses of molten glass.
Lofquist was assisted in fashiOning
the bowl by three men of his shop,
called gatherers and servitors, who
gathered the molten glass.
The process of making the bowl be-
gan with thrusting long, heavy
blowpipe of iron, enlarged to blunt
end, into the molten metal in the pot.
The glass at once adhered to the pipe
and by manipulation about 100 pounds
of glass were gathered on the end of
the pipe before it was withdrawn
from the furnace This white-hot mass
was lifted on the end of the fve-foot
pipe to a rack or frame, which the
servitors use for the support while