Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-05-05
A GLASS WORKS.
Bow Bottles Are Made-Freaks Of the
Blowpipe.

on dark night he will find not only
beauty in the blowing operations, but
Il great deal of humor, with an umcan-
ny weirdness in flame and shadow that
must affect his imagination to some
extent. The building is circular with
middle of it. from the top Of which Il
peculiar intermittent light is flicker
ing. In the centre Of this building,
underneath the chimney, stands q con-
ical furnace of brick containing, per-
haps. no fewer than eight holes which
are like fiercely glaring suns, and
from which pour expanding broad rays
of orange -colored light. If your eyes
are strong enough to look through the
holes from which the orange beams
of light emerge, you see several hun
dredweight of molten metal shining
silvery green is as many earthen-dome
shaped melting pots.
The nature of different kinds of
glass is dependent upon the quality
of the raw material called batch" put
into the melting-pots. Batch" is a
mixture of such materials as Calais
sand, or common river sand abound
ing in silica, salt-cake, or sodium car
Donate, and much lime. Blue colors
may be obtained by adding oxide of
cobalt, green by means of chronic,
black by manganese and amber. The
mass of molten metal got from this
Opaque, earthy-looking batch has
frequently to be skinned of impuri-
ties; but it is, nevertheless, problem
l.whence comes that wonderful and en-
during transparency which everybody
likes to see in glass.
Until the hour strikes for the work.
men 10 commence operations you may
find them experimenting for amuse-
ment or profit with the blowpipe. 1t
will not be q blowing match for beer
to slake the thirst of these men. You
will see many an enormity produced in
glass, the like of which can scarcely
ever have been dropped from puntil
before. Specimens are blown out to
the thinness Of a tissue paper bag,
which another puff of wind explodes
with a crack; or a glowing glass pear
| is, for very wantonness, knocked OIL
the puntil so that it may vanish with
report on the floor, its hue and heat
being extinguished Immediately. The
| floor all around the furnace-chamber
| is covered with brittle shining splin-
ters and particles Of glass, which
crackle underfoot at every step. One
of the men may bring you a mass of
metal on a blowpipe and ask you to
expend a few cheekfuls Of wind upon
it. The pipe takes no more blowing
than a trombone, though 1t lacks
mouthpiece and you may expand the
bubble until it is black and cold, so
fragile that it will break into myriad
of pieces if you touch it The molten
mass is so ductile that it may be spun
out into a thread, and the men often
vie with each other to see who can
make the longest and thinnest strand.
At the signal to commence work the
men, already partly stripped to the
waist, poke their four-foot blowplpe
through the hole of the crucible oppo-
site to which they work, twisting II
round until it has taken up sufficient
of the ropy and viscid glass for one
bottle. The man who is clever at his
work will, of course, gather up neith-
er too much nor too little for the
thickness of the bottle required; he
can tell without looking through the
furnace holes when he has enough by
the weight added to his pipe. Thus,
all around the fiery furnace there are
| figures moving continually across the
lurid light, most of them deXterously
welding their blowpipes, and balanc-
ling at the end of each one the exact
quantity of vitrified matter to make
bottle. The amateur would find 1t
difficult to balance the molten mass;
the chances are that it would drop on
the floor, never to be picked up again.
At the same moment you will see
bottles in all stages Of growth, some
glittering gold, others cooling down TO
orange or red; some in the forms of
plummets or dazzling pears, others as
lincandescent bosses threatening to be-
come fragile bladders. 1t is all as
charming as a pyrotechnic display.
You will see the black blow pipe
twirled round, blown down, held up
like a gun barrel, then, in the form or
an incandescent lamp-globe turned
round on a beeswaXed cast-iron imple-
ment called a marler, on whose edge
the bottle neck is formed. 1t is held
up once more, blown into, then shut up
in a cast iron mould placed at the
operators feet somewhat below the
level of the ground. This mould is
opened and closed by wire spring,
which the operator presses with his
feet, and directly the red hot bottle is
| inclosed he blows down the pipe once
more, so as to fill it completely.
A man goes round from mould to
mould, inserting a rod into the neck of
each bottle, and collecting up a tray
| full to go to the annealing chamber.
Here the bottles are stacked up for a
gradual cooling process which may
possibly last thirty-six hours. This
gives them the desired strength. The
annealing process is cure for their
natural fragility, and enables them to
stand the test of boiling water.-Lon-
| don Globe.